Child of The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black
by The Evil Duck
Summary: Sirius Black was born into a family of tradition and aristocracy, hatred and silver. But he was different. Sirius ran way from home when he was fifteen years old. Find out why. SBxOC
1. Of Muggles and Motorbikes 1

**The Child of the most Ancient and Noble House of Black **

A/N: This is an oddly put together fic. I started it in late July but then got side tracked by my mad load of summer work that I had left (three essays do for English and a six page report on whether the electoral college should be disbanded for Gov./Pol). I sort of left this fic rotting away in one of my computer folders until I stumbled across it after seeing the 4th movie. If you haven't seen it yet DO IT NOW! Finally! A good Harry Potter movie! Anyway I really liked the story so I figured I'd finish it. Here goes: first part is in 3rd person, 'cuz it is. It's easier to introduce characters that way, I like to establish setting in weird prose, and I started it at 2:30 AM and was just to lazy to think like a wizard so...meh. The rest of the story is in first person because William Faulkner rox my proverbial sox. I was reading "As I Lay Dying" (for English, one of those essays I was bitching about was on this kickass book) which is told from a million different perspectives, sometimes the same event is narrated several times by different people, this gives awesome insight into a characters mind and let's you see the world through unique eyes. So I was sitting in my hammock reading Faulkner and I was like, who cares if he's one of the greatest American authors of all time, big deal, I shall...nay I MUST do this for myself! You are reading the result. Aren't you glad I told you that story? ...better not answer that.

A/N: I am opposed to RL/SB slash. Not because I am a homophobe and I am SICK of people saying that. I AM A LESBIAN! I just don't think Sirius and Remus were in love, I think the effect of seeing each other again would have been really different. I have nothing against people who think it's true. I think they're wrong but whatever. I've just been called a homophobe so many times it makes me sick! It's a way to write off those who disagree with you. Just get over the fact that some of us don't think they were ever dating. Jeez. Sorry...personal rant.

Disclaimer: The characters belong to Ms. JK Rowling. I'm only riding the wave.

-Part I-

_July 1975_

_Of Muggles and Motorbikes_

July had come to London like a noxious haze. It was expected that the infamous English weather would have dealt with the unbelievable heat wave predicted for the southern half of the country, but the routine rains did little to deter the summer goliath. Grudgingly the residents of England's capital experienced day after day of record breaking temperatures. Years later the heat wave would become the stuff of legend, but at the time it was considered a miracle to get from one destination to the next without having the soles of your shoes weld to the pavement.

Time came to a strange standstill in the opaque summer heat. The birds that hovered overhead never inched closer to their nests nor did they get any further away. Cars slowed in the trafficless streets to a crawl filling the air around them with thick curling clouds of gray smoke. People inched from place to place, their shoes heavy on their feet, clothes glued with sweat to their skin, brains swollen and thick in their heads. Even the sun was overwhelmed by its own heat taking every few moments to pause panting above the resentful city.

It was probably the minds of the city residents that suffered the most. They became sticky, clouded, and dangerously hot. Vision blurred and sounds became fuzzy and far off. Straight lines became an impossible dream. Judgment fell by the wayside and getting in off the street seemed to be the only solution. In this sleepy, stupid, slow heat it was easy to lose your mind.

That is, if you had a mind to lose, and Sirius Black was quite confident that he'd disposed of that useless thing years ago.

Sirius was fourteen years old, fifteen come October, and had just finished his fourth year of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He whistled softly to himself, hands stuffed into the pockets of his blue jeans in a nonchalant, would-be-innocent gesture that would have worked if it hadn't been for the glint in his gray eyes.

Sirius was very tall and had lost almost all of the awkward teenage lank that plagued most boys his age. He had one of those magical skin tones that was pale without being sickly looking, and perfectly countered his jet black hair. His hair hung at his shoulders and was just messy enough to show his indifference.

He had a slightly crooked smile, the kind that made you grin, ask, "what?" and blush. He always had an answer but it differed with the questioner's age. If he chanced a full smile, which was rare, it could make your heart melt and gave new meaning to the term pearly whites.

As aforementioned his eyes were gray but they never tended to stay that way. They were always alive, swimming with thoughts and emotions. When he was happy they would light up his face with mischievous joy, but they could also add years and creases to it, paling him to a vampiric pallor with white hot anger. And they could change that drastically on a dime, as unpredictable as the boy they belonged to. But if you caught him in a good mood everything about Sirius Black was handsome, even perfect.

He was a few blocks away from home with an hour and a half to kill before his mother would realize he wasn't in his room and had slipped down the drain pipe, again. It had been like this every day since he'd come home from school. Around noon he'd disappear to his room without so much as a word, most of the time without even seeming to move. It was as if he'd Apperated silently, moving with predatory grace out of sight. Once there he'd begin to read or mutter to himself while staring into a handheld mirror. Then, once again, he'd vanish leaving no trace that he'd ever been there at all. He'd had a lot of practice fleeing the scene of a crime and was quite good at it by now.

Ever since he was a little boy Sirius had been "a trouble maker," a label which he redefined as he got older. But in his parents' eyes he had crossed that line ages ago. Now after being sorted into Gryffindor, taking Muggle Studies since third year, befriending two half bloods, associating with Muggle borns and Muggles, beating up Slytherins including his brother, and disappearing to explore Muggle London every summer, the eldest child of Cassiopeia and Orion Black was teetering on the edge of being a blood traitor. A title which appealed to Sirius immensely.

Sirius had been allowing his mind to wander, the possibilities were endless. He was a big fan of the saying "Capri Diem" because at number 12 Grimmauld Place it was never promised that he would be able to make it through the day without being disemboweled.

In his boredom he stumbled upon it: 12 New Way and the O'Connor Mechanic Garage. It wasn't anything particularly exciting, in fact he'd probably passed it a thousand times without realizing it. The street around it smelled thickly of motor oil and the air was even hotter surrounding the huge door, so it felt walking into a furnace. The few passers by traveled in a great arc around the garage hands clasped over their mouths and noses avoiding both the bubble of heat and the smell.

But something was pulling Sirius toward it, something that sounded a lot like _My Generation _by The Who being played on an out of tune radio.

It had been her mother's idea to name their daughter Amethyst, something the 15 year old girl had never forgiven her for. The only consolation was that she wasn't the only one who had to suffer, four brothers followed her and were all named after colors. Her mother was an artist, and if career decided what you were going to name your children Amethyst supposed she was lucky her father (the mechanic) hadn't gotten to name her Spark Plug or Fan Belt.

But despite her name it was her father's footsteps she followed in allowing the second oldest in the family, Azure, to be the artist. She'd much rather be where she was at that very moment: leaning over the greasy blackened engine of a violently violet Volkswagen Minibus listening to the radio, than in a field somewhere pondering the true color of a rose.

The car was an orphan in her eyes; someone, an American in her memory, had left it behind because its transmission was shot and its breaks were about as effective as slamming on the clutch in order to make the vehicle stop. But that was where Amethyst O'Connor came in, if a half drowned kitten with three legs washed up on her doorstep during a hurricane she would make no promises that the animal would stay in her care, but show her a maltreated Bentley and she would be all over it cooing with affection. The minibus became hers three months ago and made its semi permanent residence on the right hand side of the garage to the left of the office door against the cement wall.

She surfaced slightly from the depths of the engine, her element, staring down into the car, her brow furrowed, lost in thought. It reminded her of those kiddy games people gave you when you were bored, mazes and word finds; it looks so hard until you find the first letter or right passageway, then it's only a matter of time. That's what Amethyst saw in the mass of intertwining metal and goo filled compartments: a challenge, but with thought and time...

"Gotcha!" she whispered slipping back down into the car both feet leaving the ground, one leg stretched out as far as it could go so it was grazing the office wall, the other bent at the knee.

"Hey Amethyst," came a voice from behind her. She rolled her eyes as she twisted her wrench over and over her arm shaking slightly with effort.

Azure was 13-years-old and the second oldest O'Connor. He and Amethyst shared both their stereotypically Irish hair and the knowledge that rules were quite possibly the most elastic things in existence, you could easily bend them and they'd always snap back into place, no one the wiser. His was hair was curly and gave him a distinct rag-a-muffin do not trust appearance, but Amethyst's was straight and obedient, which it would have to be after years of being pulled back into a high, tight ponytail.

"What do you want from me?" she asked tossing her wrench over her shoulder, before sliding down onto her Chuck Taylor High Tops to face him. She tried to blow a strand of hair out of her eyes, hands fastened around her waist in an aloof "I'm busy right now" gesture that every older sister knows how to do. Azure looked down at her and snorted at her oil stained frame and sweat streaked face.

By this time in the afternoon Amethyst looked something like a Dalmatian, her fair skin dotted and splotched with grime as well as her usual summer freckles that stood out predominately on her slightly Roman nose.

Sniggering Azure gestured toward the door to the street where a tall boy around her age was leaning against the frame fiddling with the open/closed sign and staring boredly around the cement room as if he was waiting for someone.

"What?" Amethyst asked Azure, brushing the stray hair back smearing her forehead. Azure, who was sniggering in a "first comes love then comes marriage..." kind of way, quieted at one look into his sister's eyes, they matched her name suspiciously well, light purple, almost lilac, with gemlike sparkling streaks of deep violet. They were calm, some what motherly. With that nurturing glint she was also given the incredible power to make you feel bad about yourself. She was rational, down to earth, probably everything you could ever ask for in a big sister.

"Don't you know him?" He asked quietly, "is he your boyfriend?"

"No," she shrugged tossing her ponytail back over her shoulder and turning away from her brother to call out to the boy, "do you need a hand?"

"No," said the boy absentmindedly, he dropped the sign and watched it swing on the door for a few moments following it with his eyes his head cocked to one side.

Azure snorted again, his high shoulders quivering with giggles. Amethyst sighed, "the heat does weird things to people." She muttered to her brother.

"I think the English are just odd on the whole." he whispered back.

It'd been five years since the O'Connor family came to London from Crowley, Ireland. They'd left behind a moderately small city to the enormous snaking streets of London, where it was easy to wind up on the other side of the Thames without remembering ever crossing a bridge.

The move hadn't been easy on the children, especially not for Amethyst who'd always had trouble with things like friends. She still felt like the new kid and spent an almost unhealthy amount of time in the garage her skin now stained a shade or so darker than it had been before they moved and the same was probably true for her lungs.

"Hey!" Amethyst called, "you can't touch that!" The boy looked up at her one black eyebrow arched and his face indifferent silently thanking her for stating the obvious.

His hand was tracing the curve of the silver handlebars of the large black motorcycle that had just been in for a major repair (the owner, who'd spent a good deal of the previous year in the states, hadn't realized that English bikes were by no means "choppers" - an American term for easily customizable and frequently almost entirely remade motorcycles.--- English bikes were easy to break and made for distance rather than speed. Amethyst had to be almost physically restrained to keep from jumping on the embarrassed owner. His abused motorbike made its home here among its injured fellows.)

The boy's eyes were shimmering dangerously, "is this yours?" he asked as Amethyst angrily crossed to him.

"No, it's not, its a customer's. What can I help you with?" she asked brushing the stray hair out of her eyes again. He was now running his hand gently over the frame his face lit with fascinated joy, a playful gaze like a child on Christmas.

"Nothing." He said again pulling his eyes painfully away from the shimmering motorcycle. "I'm Sirius."

"I'm sorry?" Amethyst asked confusedly, "I wasn't questioning that I just want to know why you're here if--"

He sighed, "No, no, I'm Sirius. It's my name, S-I-R-I-U-S."

"Oh," Amethyst furrowed her brow but she thought insulting names really wasn't her business, how many people could say they were a shade of purple? "Okay. I suppose...look, Sirius, you're going to have to leave, I can't have you---DON'T!"

"What?" he asked giving her a faux innocent look that wouldn't have fooled anyone, especially not someone who'd been watching small boys since she learned how to walk.

With an equally practiced but efficient glare she made Sirius withdraw his hand as if by magic. "You're really good at that," He said grinning at her.

"Practice," she said, shooting a dirty look at Azure who was making kissy noises as he raced up the metal staircase that lead to the O'Connor's flat above them.

"I didn't catch your name," Sirius was still studying the row of motorcycles each one shining brightly in the sun like a star.

"I didn't give it," she answered, "I'm really busy and...it's Amethyst," she sighed.

"Amethyst?" He repeated, "it's--"

"--A color I know, my mum has a thing for--"

Sirius interrupted, "I was just going to say it's a beautiful name and matches your eyes spectacularly."

"I'm still going to have to throw you out."

Sirius shrugged.

The radio behind them, resting on an old wooden stool gave an angry sort of buzz as the fuzzy voice of the heat effected DJ faded away and the gentle guitar of yet another The Who song filled the thick air of the garage.

_No one knows what it's like _

To be the bad man

To be the sad man

Behind Blue eyes

No one knows what it's like

To be hated

To be faded

To telling only lies

But my dreams, they aren't as empty

As my conscience seems to be

I have hours only lonely

My love is vengeance that's never free---

Amethyst watched the radio for a few moments as if expecting it to jump to life. Sirius was watching it too but his interest waned quickly and he asked, "been here long?"

"What...?" asked Amethyst somehow thrown off by the radio. It felt like some great coincidence had happened. Something huge had, that was for sure. She couldn't quite place the feeling in the pit of her stomach, fogging her brain, and seizing her heart. It wasn't a bad feeling, just something that couldn't have made sense even though...it did? Some people, irrational people and dreamers, call it fate. One of the most fantastic and unnerving feelings, the knowledge that this event is meant to happen, may already have happened, and will change your life forever.

"Hello..." Sirius waved his hand in front of her eyes, "talking to me, not them. In England. Have you been in England long?"

"A few years, yeah." She said looking back into his eyes which had become striking midnight blue. ("_Behind Blue eyes_" said four voices from the old radio behind her.)

"Ah," he said somewhat dejectedly, "I was going to give you a tour, maybe I dunno..." he shrugged, "get something to eat, create an 'Annoying Names Anonymous'? But I suppose..."

"Hang on, we've just met!" she interjected.

"So that's a no?" he asked.

"I...look...you're not supposed to be here! I'm working! I don't even know you!"

"I'm Sirius. I told you that, Sirius Black. I live on Grimmauld. I'm 14. 15, on Halloween, there you go."

"Not what I mean---I---" she sighed, "I'm WORKING!" she repeated helplessly. The argument felt less and less valid all the time. Everything, aside from the two teenagers, was sticky and still, the world was stiff with drying sweat and ruby red sunburn.

No one even passed by the enormous metal door let alone walked inside. The parking lot that the house and garage were set in front of was empty but for a group of pigeons that had landed to lazily pick at a piece of white bread that had fallen on the hot asphalt.

He looked around the empty garage, his eyes resting on her rust-red tool box and the propped open hood of the VW. He watched the brittle metal staircase that Azure had run up and watched the door, the knob smeared with oil and grease, the cross fastened to it, and the peep hole, which her mother had painted an eye around. Then he looked back into her eyes.

McGonagall would have been proud, the last time he'd seem a glare like that was when he had transfigured his cousin Bellatrix into a newt. But there was something else. A little twinkle next to the pupil, between the purple stripes. The little glimmer of mischievousness that he was looking for. Sure Amethyst O'Connor would never _ever_ be questioned by her headmaster or any other adult. She was the responsible one, but she'd broken her fair share of rules in her lifetime, just nobody had realized it.

"Just for the afternoon, get to know one another better, we're neighbors after all," he said innocently.

"Working..." she muttered turning back toward the car. She looked up at the door to the house from where loud sniggering emitting, followed by soft, "Shhh! Shhh!" and the mud room behind the door became eerily quiet. Amethyst rolled her eyes. She knew waiting just behind the door were Azure, Flax (third oldest and 11 years old), Titian (nine years old), and Teal (youngest at eight). They thought they were being inconspicuous and Amethyst muttered a prayer to the ceiling. Sirius was watching the door now too, grinning.

"Who're they?" He asked jerking his head to the door.

"My brothers," muttered Amethyst exasperatedly, "talk about a rock and a hard place. You know what...okay, I'm in."

"Really?" Sirius asked looking back at her.

"Yeah just give me a second," she went back to the Volkswagen and lovingly put the hood down patting it gently as if it were a hot purple dog. She closed up her rarely used toolbox and stacked her tools as she usually did, on the office window ledge. She patted the car again before pulling off her smeared high-tops, Amethyst unzipped the turquoise mechanic's coverall to reveal her moderately clean clothes underneath. She wore a plain white t-shirt and jeans that were straight legged and practical, no beads were sewn into the denim, no sequins or decorations of any kind, not even patches to cover up the seven or eight tears. After putting her Chuck Taylors back on she disappeared into the office returning with her face scrubbed basically clean except for a single determined speck on the side of her nose.

"Shall we?" said Sirius offering his hand and she accepted it, rolling her eyes as he brought hers to his lips and kissed it. She snatched her hand back rolling her eyes and the pair set off into the sweating city under the white hot dog day.

_A/N: I would be incredibly surprised if there actually was a heat wave in 1975, my room is in the attic, it was 105 degrees today. I'm really hot. It's two AM and I'm overheating thus so are the characters, just be glad you don't live in one of my stories. (A/N written over the summer)_

A/N: Muggles outside of school, dummy!

A/N: Behind Blue Eyes, The Who, Who's Next. Most Kickass song ever written and so totally Sirius it almost hurts. If you don't know it go ask your parents/find it on i-Tunes/go find it on Lime-Wire/Go find it on whatever you've got/JUST LISTEN TO IT!

I know the dog days are August but...STFU! XD

A/N: I did loads of research for this! No, I'm lying. I looked 1960's VW's up on Wikipedia and I watched a History Channel documentary on motorcycles on day when I was sick home from school.


	2. Of Muggles and Motorbikes 2

_A/N: Thanx to everyone who reviewed on chapter one! I love getting reviews! Originally chapter one was going to be like 772 bizillion (or a real number) pages long but I just couldn't end it, so I decided to break it into two parts Of Muggles and Motorbikes 1 and Of Muggles and Motorbikes 2. Anyway this one's pretty choppy and it's giving me grief but since you're reading this it's better now. Hopefully XD!. I just realized I got the title wrong on the first chapter. Jeez stupid "Noble and Most Ancient" that one makes the least sense to me. Whatever, I got it right where it counts. LoL. Anyways thanx for readin'/reviewin' and I hope you enjoy. This is part of the previous chapter so it's also third person. But the rest of the fic will be written by: Amethyst (Do You Believe in Magic?), Amethyst and Sirius (Letters From Hogwarts), Sirius (I don't believe in Love), Regulus (Brothers In Blood), Sirius (A Child Of The Noble And Most Ancient House of Black) James (The Making of A Murderer), then Sirius (Refuge) and finally third person (Conclusion). This is gonna be a looooong story so this may take a few months to finish. But bear with me XD! _

_Check out my profile page for a link to my myspace, where, if you've got a myspace, you can join the fan fic blog group I just started. SELF PROMOTION! LoL! All car terminology is correct. I googled minibuses! P ! _

_Please Review, I don't care, good or bad I want some feed back! ) _

_Cookies for all! _

_-The Evil Duck. _

_WARNING: Minor American bashing in this chapter, but since I'm from Jersey it's allowed, 'sides it moves the plot. Also references to child abuse. Yay for Padfoot angst! You have been warned! _

**The Child of The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black **

-Part 1.5-

Of Muggles and Motorbikes 2

_July 1975 _

And suddenly, Amethyst realized, it wasn't such a bad day after all. She was glad for the first time in weeks that she'd listened to the little devil perched on her left shoulder instead of the angelic voice in her right ear.

"You're not sane are you?" Amethyst asked.

"Never claimed to be," shrugged Sirius. He had been watching her with much more interest since they left the garage. He was after all, 14, and without the bulky, stained coverall her good looks became much more obviously Her hair, although it was still trapped in it's too-tight ponytail, was soft and silky, glistening in the sun. It was red, but was also streaked with lighter blondes and deeper auburns, as gemlike as her eyes. Freckles dotted her pale cheeks bridging her dignified European nose. She was tall, slightly lanky, and thin.

"I'm really surprised I'd never seen you before," he said, walking backwards in front of her.

"Me too, actually," said Amethyst sweeping her ponytail back over her shoulder, "never seen you at school or anything."

"I don't go to school around here," Sirius told her, "I go to a...er...exclusive school in Scotland."

"Why?" asked Amethyst.

Sirius shrugged, "family tradition," he decided finally.

"Where are we going?" asked Amethyst for the three hundredth time since they'd left the garage as Sirius turned seemingly randomly down a side street.

"Dunno," said Sirius calmly as if this was his master plan. "Where ever. Same as before."

"You know, I am so glad I decided to stop working on my van and come with you," she said sarcastically.

"What kind is it?" He asked.

"What kind is what?"

"Your van," he was walking slower now catching her eyes and holding them with his own, "what kind is it?"

"A violet '61 VW minibus," said Amethyst with relish, "Type 2, rear engine, split window, Kombi." She laughed at Sirius's look of confusion, "girls like cars too you know."

"It's not that at all," he said smiling, "I just...have no idea what you just said, I don't know a damned thing about cars, wish I did, but I don't. So run that by me again starting from the word 'A'."

"A violet, purple that is," she grinned, "1961 Volkswagen minibus, 1961 being the year it was made--"

"I gathered," said Sirius.

"---Type 2, meaning it's the second generation of minibuses. Type 1 was made in the 1950's...it may have been 1950, I don't remember, rear engine, the engine is in the back and there is no boot, same as the VW Beetles and a lot of American cars, like Ford's Econoline and Dodge's B110. Split window means the windscreen is in two pieces instead of one sheet of glass, and Kombi comes from some German word...oh...give me a moment...it'll come to me...Kombinationskraftwagen, or something like that. I think it means traveler, or is it compound vehicle? I can't remember, anyway all that means is that you can take out the seats in the back and there are windows in the back."

"Wow," Sirius said lamely, "couldn't dumb it down a bit more?"

She shook her head, smiling now. "It has four wheels, drives on pavement, has a big mechanical thing called an engine in the back--" but Sirius was hardly listening now. He was entranced by her smile. It was subtle and small. It was warm, authentic, a rare find, as people tend to hide, tend to lie, to change to please others. Most smiles, he'd found, were fakes. Sirius wondered the last time he'd seen a smile like this. Or if he ever had before. Her lips were unmade-up soft, pink, innocent. Enticing.

"Are you even listening to me?" Amethyst asked, the smile disappeared.

"What?" Sirius asked, "yeah!"

Across the Thames, St. Paul's glittered in the white hot noon light, it's famous dome glowing like a star. In the distance Tower Bridge seemed to bend in onto itself twisting in a heat mirage. The street was practically silent except for a few cooing heat exhausted pigeons that waddled and bobbed across the sidewalk slowly like obese pedestrians, and the dull murmur of underpaid actors emanating from the Globe Theater that they now approached. Amethyst had never been one for theater, nor were her parents, so she turned toward the noise without much interest. Sirius watched her and listened, trying to recognize the play.

Unlike Amethyst, Sirius had been taught to read on Shakespeare and Marlow, and by the age of eight could recite Macbeth, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, and his least favorite, Romeo and Juliet, by heart. It wasn't his choice, but his parents'. It was supposedly proof that he was smarter and better than those raised on "Pat the Bunny," or "Dick and Jane." The actor's overly pretentious voice sounded faint, muffled by the plaster walls and thick humidity, "he jests at scars that have never felt a wound."

It was Romeo and Juliet, specifically act 2 scene 2, Romeo climbs the wall surrounding the Capulet manor to watch from the garden, delivering one of Shakespeare's most famous speeches. Sirius didn't skip a beat, "but soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east and Juliet is the sun! Arise fair sun and kill the envious moon," Amethyst arched her eyebrows and watched almost dumbstruck as Sirius jumped onto the curved railing that protected pedestrians from falling to their deaths into the Thames. He caught his balance quickly, showing no sign of fear although he did cast a nervous glance to his right into the still, thick, blue water. "Who is already sick and pale with grief that thou her maid art far more fair than she--"

"Get down from there before you fall and drown or crack your head open," said Amethyst exasperatedly, afraid to pull Sirius's arm and upset his balance.

"She speaks," said Sirius happily as he jumped back down, "O speak again bright angel for thou art as glorious to this nigh--"

"That's enough William," she grinned, "didn't realize you were such a literature buff."

Sirius shrugged, "old Shakey did much better than Romeo and Juliet. Whole bloody play's about two horny teenagers who think they're in love."

"But they're not?" asked Amethyst.

"No, just sex deprived," he said, but his mind was blaring no _such thing as love _Honestly he had never believed in love. After all, he'd never seen proof. His parents had been arranged to marry each other to keep the aristocracy alive. They didn't love him, he knew that. They viewed him as a way to get ahead, and since he wasn't even providing that for them he was just a nuisance. A permanent, annoying guest, or some sort of unruly creature that periodically had to be battered around to keep him in line.

His father had been the worst, but Orion Black died of liver failure due to alcoholism just before Christmas of 1973. Sirius hadn't stopped laughing for weeks. His mother wasn't as bad as his father, but she had periodically cursed him if he did something exceptionally dumb, but...there was that time with the Filibuster's No Heat Wet Start Firework. It had been just a joke.

_It was just a joke..._

_It had been at a Ministry Dinner, 12-year-old Sirius had gotten bored of being yanked around the room by his father meeting the Smiths, the LeStranges, the Williams, the Zambinis, and every other pureblood family in creation. He saw his cousin, Narsissa, across the room deep in conversation with Lucius Malfoy. Malfoy had graduated Hogwarts a year previously and was already a big name in the Ministry. The Malfoys and the Blacks were already tightly intertwined on the family tree, but it had already been 'suggested' that Lucius and Narsissa would make a perfect couple. After all, thought Sirius, they already were family. Malfoy looked around the room smugly with haughty blue eyes. Sirius felt his teeth grind and hands tighten to fists. Malfoy jumped to his feet, smiling as the Minister of Magic approached. The minister took the young man's hand in both of his, shaking it as if this was some great honor. If Sirius wanted to strike Malfoy's smug, pretty face, then would have been the best time. _

_Before his father knew what Sirius was doing the firework was already in the air, colliding with it's intended target, ash spattered Malfoy's robes, face, and hair. The Minister jumped backward in surprise, Narsissa was flecked with the powder as well and she shrieked as if in pain. Sirius was laughing, tears in the corners of his shining eyes, but it all ended very quickly. His father, pale-faced and royal looking bent down to Sirius's level during the chaos just after the attack and said with horrible practiced calmness brimming with rage, "don't think I didn't see that, and I promise you when we get home I'll really give you something to laugh about." _

_It had just been a prank, one simple, stupid, idiotic prank. But the scars hadn't faded on his back. _

"You okay?" asked Amethyst seemingly suddenly and very loudly, "you stopped talking, are you just staring at my chest?"

Before Sirius could answer a loud American accented voice exploded like a gun shot around them, "Good day!" it said, and both teens spun around to face a tall fat man wearing a brown Disney Land baseball cap with the brim flipped up to reveal his sweating forehead, and a sweat stained t-shirt with the Union Jack printed on it. He had a hefty black camera hanging around his neck like a medallion. The strain of carrying the heavy thing was evident in the off color underarms of the tee.

Behind him was a woman with hair teased upwards into an unnatural beehive, her eyes were coated in dripping bright blue eye shadow behind a pair of cat's eye glasses dotted with rhinestones. She looked annoyed, glaring up at the sun then down at Sirius and Amethyst chewing her tongue as if they were the cause of the uncomfortable heat.

"Hello," said Amethyst as the man approached them.

"Do you...chaps...think you could lend us a hand? We're lost," he asked, stumbling over his accent awkwardly.

"Chaps?" mouthed Sirius to Amethyst who shrugged.

"Where're you headed?" asked Amethyst, Sirius was still mouthing the words 'chaps' to himself watching Amethyst with pity since she was actually talking to the man.

"Uh," the man looked around the street glancing at everything between Tower Bridge and Black Friar's, "where's the...historic district."

"I'm sorry?" Amethyst asked.

"S'no problem lass, just asking for the historic district," the man repeated, saying the last words far louder than necessary as if Amethyst was deaf.

Sirius snorted behind Amethyst muttering, "lass." She bit her tongue to keep from following suit and cracking up.

"You are Irish, right?" asked the American man nervously.

"Yeah, originally, top of the morning to you," she giggled, mostly to appease Sirius who was now almost rolling on the ground in a fit of silent laughter, holding onto the rail for support. "Now the 'historic district?'" she repeated.

"Look kid," the wife bustled forward shoving a map under Amethyst's nose, "we want to see old timey stuff, y'know? You Europeans should be a little more grateful, now show my husband to the historic area!" Amethyst stopped giggling and looked into the woman's angry eyes.

"It's okay, Doris," said the man. "It's fine, I've got it, this young lass is going to help us."

"It's just," Amethyst sounded as if she couldn't believe she was saying this, "there is no historic district."

"She's being smart with you, Marty," hissed the woman as if Amethyst couldn't hear.

"No, maybe, just, uh, listen lass, all cities have historic districts. Hell, some cities are historic districts, like Colonial Williamsburg, we're looking for that kind of place," said the man taking the map from his wife, holding it out in front of him for Amethyst to see although she was forced to read it upside down.

"I'm sorry, where?" she was getting more and more confused.

"Williamsburg! You know in Virginia?" He said loudly.

"I don't know a lot about the USA," she replyed, "but if you want historic stuff it's all around you. London's like two thousand years old. I mean we're in front of the Globe Theater," she gestured towards the building and both tourists looked up in surprise as if they hadn't seen it there.

"This place is famous?" the man asked dumbstruck, "like people would recognize it."

"Yeah," Amethyst nodded, "Shakespeare's Globe."

"Oh, oh, that Globe!" he said faux-knowledgably, "Shakespeare's Globe. Romeo and Juliet, Alas poor Yorik, stuff like that. You speak old English?"

"No," said Amethyst flatly.

"Gaelic?"

"No."

"She's just teasing you, Marty," whispered the wife, "she's Irish, it was her first language."

Marty nodded, "so, lass, what else is there to see?"

Amethyst was getting exasperated, "Tower Bridge way down there, see? That's St. Paul's across the Thames there." She pointed towards the spiked peaks of the famous bridge through the thick humidity bearing down on them like a curtain, before turning to point out the obvious cathedral just behind Sirius.

"How did you just say it?" asked the man laughing slightly.

"What? St. Paul's?" Amethyst looked puzzled.

"No, no, no, the name of the river."

"It's the River Thames..." said Amethyst slowly.

Doris was laughing now too. "It must just be your accent," said Marty, "you just say Thames so oddly." He pronounced it phonetically.

Sirius gave way to a new fit of laughter, failing to pass it off as a sneeze as was his original intent. "Right," Amethyst kept going choosing to ignore this last comment, "Tate Modern is just down the road, it's a muesum...and..."

The woman, Doris shifted her weight uncomfortably shielding her eyes with a manicured but mannish hand muttering something that sounded like, "European punks...Bailed them out of World War 2..."

Amethyst stopped talking, a slow small smirk twitched at the corners of her full lips, "you know what sir, I'll tell you how to get to the best kept secret in London. Ready?"

"That's more like it," muttered the woman coming closer to hear.

"Right, just cross that bridge, Black Friar's," she pointed a few blocks to their left where the intricately carved, almost plastic-looking bridge spanned the Thames, "just take that street right there," she was still pointing, "take a left down Bruckner Avenue it'll be probably the fifth or sixth street, head down 'till you hit Fleet, take a left down a side street, past the...the... Partridge in a Pear Tree pub, you'll know when you see it."

The two Americans set off grumbling, Marty still fumbling with the overlarge map, Doris jogging ahead of him her thick, sweating arms dangling at her sides.

"Partridge in a Pear Tree pub?" asked Sirius when she turned back towards him. He was grinning. "You could have done better than that."

"I wouldn't usually do that!" she said quickly, "it's just they were rude and he called me 'lass,' and..and...you know I really could have thought of a better fake pub name, but they did buy it, and I was on the spot."

"Where do you think they'll end up?" he watched them boredly for a few more seconds, "after Fleet Street I mean."

"Probably just there," she said tugging once more at her ponytail, winding the red strands between her fingers, "they'll duck down every side street in the business district before they ask for directions and get laughed at by some executives at lunch. I wonder where they thought I was sending them?"

"Toward your pot of Leprechaun gold of course!" said Sirius as they set off again. The day seemed suddenly cooler, and the time which had been going so painfully slowly before was now passing far faster than was normal, the sun spinning like the wing of a pin wheel through the sky.

Sirius and Amethyst stopped to get something to eat at a small cafe a few blocks away from the Globe. Amethyst refused to allow Sirius to pay for her meal, and, despite his best efforts, she was much faster with Muggle money than he. Sirius struggled for a few moments with the notes like a foreigner, muttering to himself under his breath.

Amethyst looked at him quizzically, "having trouble?" she asked.

"Haven't you ever wondered what paper's worth?" he answered.

"Wait--what?"

"Paper. I mean that's all Mug--money is essentially, you know. Just little pieces of paper, why do people want to collect little notes with numbers written on them?"

"I never thought about that," she furrowed her brow but was smiling, "I dunno, to buy things I guess. I mean we've all agreed that those pieces of paper are worth something, right?"

Sirius shrugged.

"I mean it makes more sense than trading or gold coins."

Again Sirius shrugged, sipping his soda slowly and fiddling with the overlarge gold coin in his jeans pocket.

The two wandered aimlessly around the city and without getting into a cab wound up in Hyde Park. Amethyst shook her head shouting, "you're something you know that," as Sirius took off at a run into a group of fat pigeons that took off around him forming a thick feathery cloud. They spent the rest of the afternoon in London's most famous park, telling each other stories and secrets they didn't even realize they knew.

"Azure's gay," Amethyst said as the pair lay on a grassy plot getting stared at by the dog walkers and other passers by who wanted nothing more than to get out of the sun. She had her hands behind her head, staring up into the bright blue sky. "He doesn't think anyone knows, but I do. I'm his sister, I know everything."

"I thought that was parents," said Sirius, "I thought parents and teachers know everything."

"Nah, you know same as me parents only think they know, same for teachers. What's it like at your boarding school?" asked Amethyst.

"I dunno," sighed Sirius, "same as here, you know, uniforms, homework, teen angst, crushes, sob stories, cliques, drugs, sex, rock and roll."

"I hate my uniform," Amethyst confided, "it makes me feel so...girly and awkward."

"Have you got a boyfriend?" Sirius asked suddenly, surprising himself as much as her. Sirius had had more than triple the number of girlfriends of any seventh year. His exploits with females over the summer were the stuff of legend. Sirius would melt your heart and have it in his palm in a matter of seconds, and he could toss it back to you later, all without breaking it. Every girlfriend he'd ever had felt special, even though they saw him with his tongue down the throat of a new one practically every week. He was a hero to the boys and a deity to the girls.

"No." she said frankly, "no never. I don't really have many friends at all actually..."

"Why not?" Sirius asked turning his head to face her.

"I'm just different, you know? I--I'm new I guess, and I don't like make up, or a lot of music, I'm Irish, I just came here, I've never been kissed, I don't want to be, I'm a strict Irish Catholic, I don't smoke or drink or anything."

"And I was just going to ask you if you minded if I lit a cigarette," said Sirius, "you're unique. That's what makes you wonderful. Care if I smoke?"

"Mind if I die?" she asked.

He sighed and slipped the paper tube back into his pocket, "do you try to make friends? I mean you're so much fun, it's hard to see you without anyone. Don't pretend to be so goody-goody, let your hair down. Literally and figuratively."

She had been fiddling with her ponytail and released it as he said this. "I...I don't really like talking to people..." she confided.

"You're talking to me," he pointed out.

"You're different for some reason."

It was around eight o'clock at night when they returned to 12 New Way and the sun was now a deep bloody red. The sky was bright amber, the clouds dyed yellow and orange. The buildings ahead of them were now a deep shadowy purple. Their shadows lay elongated and black on the sidewalk in front of them. The huge metal door of the mechanic's garage was pulled shut and the sign that had interested Sirius earlier on the smaller glass door now said "CLOSED" in big black letters. Amethyst smacked her forehead, "I said I'd be back before closing! What time is it," she turned Sirius's wrist so she could see his watch, "hell," she muttered before freeing his arm, "sorry," she added, "should've asked first."

Sirius asked, "how long ago was closing time?"

"An hour and a half," she grinned sheepishly.

"Oh, sorry," he grimaced, "are you going to be in a lot of trouble?"

"Not much," she said, "I think they'll be happy I was out with a real person. My dad might be bothered by the fact that your a boy. He worries."

"Right then, but he'll have no problems with me being a stay-at-home Protestant?"

"Not as long as there are no problems with me being a strict Irish Catholic. Respect me and my family and who we are and he'll love you, and if you ever meet him, just don't act scared. He's like a horse, he can smell fear." She laughed.

"I will get to meet him, one day."

"Will you? So I'll see you again? You're not just going to be some weirdo who pops into my life once and never comes back?"

"Of course not, I'll be a weirdo who pops into your life so often you wish I'd only popped once," he answered bending down.

"Are you going to try to kiss me?" she asked.

"Thinking about it," he smirked, "why?"

"Nope," she shook her head stepping back, "we're friends Mr. Black, nothing more."

"Fine, Miss O'Connor," he stood up and saluted, "I will see you tomorrow."

"When?" She asked.

"It's a secret," he told her, "meaning I have no idea."

"You don't know much do you?" she asked.

"Not a bloody thing. Well, lass, good night."

"You too, chap," she said pulling out a plain key ring and fitting a small gold one into the slot. He watched her disappear into the dark garage and stood there alone for a few moments, watching his own shadow stretched in front of him. He lit his ciggerette and furrowed his brow in thought. His mother was going to have his head but he wasn't thinking about that, he never thought about that. He was thinking instead of Amethyst O'Connor.

_A/N: Awww teh cuteness! 3 I wanted to end this on a different note b/c he doesn't love her...yet. ;) he thinks of her as a friend, but he's Sirius and he kisses (and then some) any girl he meets so it was his natural impulse. Oh and the cigerette thing! Yeah I know it's gross but it's an ultimate act of rebelion. I mean it's muggle and it's grody as hell so it's sure to piss of his pure blood parents. I've got a whole story as to how he became a nicotine addict, but that's another story for another time...another place...a place and time where I am less lazy! LoL! Anyway, you've read...now REVIEW! LoL! _

_A/N: I've been to London and they have scary ass pigeons. I mean like FREAKIN' HUGE ASS pigeons like they probably ate the "feed the birds" lady from Mary Poppins, but NY Pigeons have more attitude and that's where it counts. Yeah New York! Okay I'm done. _

_A/N: Obviously not written by me, Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare, 1594. I've got "The Arden Shakespeare, Complete Works, Revised Edition" i_

_A/N: No the Smiths are not Zacarius Smith, it's Jack Smith IV, a guy I go to school with, the MOST Slytherin-y, Dark Wizard-y person I can think of. Like the definition Slytherin. Like every teacher loves him even though he never does his work, he's had about 100 girlfriends over the years, has slept with all of them, then broken up with all of them, but can still get more, like everyone knows him, like he would kill to get to the top, I'm sure he will. The Williams's are his girlfriend Caitlin's family. I just needed another last name LoL! _

_A/N: As an American I am supposed to make fun of them. This guy is heavily influenced by a story David Sedaris wrote called "Picka Pocketoni" in...I think it was Me Talk Pretty One Day, but it could be Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. Whatever one of those books. David Sedaris GOD!. _

_A/N: okay personal pet peeve of mine. When I was in England, I was totally embarrassed to be an American for lots of reasons, one being because I saw some guy talking about the Thames River pronounced how it's spelled. It's pronounced "Tems" and it's the River Thames not the Thames River. It seemed to piss off the locals too, so...stuff... _

_A/N: The rest of these should come faster b/c I have a lot of the later chapters already started! Plus this one was deterred by studying for Midterms. 00 never mention midterms again...look what it did to my smiley! The other chapters also shouldn't suck this bad. I don't know what's wrong with my brain. I think my creativity died half way through...oh well_

_Final A/N: The Next chapter is called "Do You Believe in Magic" Here is be a taste: _

"_Do you believe in magic, Am?" he asked me, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel of my Kombi. _

"_That's a strange question," I said, "Of course not, not since I was little," his eyes flickered, maybe it was a change in the color or something but he looked suddenly upset. I hate the word "magic" it sounds so young, so demeaning. It's something you say to a little kid when they ask you to many annoying or inappropriate questions. "Magic" makes me feel young, stupid, helpless. Stupid word, stupid idea. "I believe in miracles, impossible things happening, I have faith in The Lord. But I don't believe in leprechauns, or banshees, or ghosts, or ghouls, or witches, and whatever." _

"_That's funny," he said with his brow furrowed looking at me with those intense eyes. His eyes say more than his mouth does and that's an accomplisment. _

TTFN!


	3. Magic

_A/N: This is the chapter I've been wanting to write forever! (And you have to for how long it's taken me to write it! God you'd think it would be easy to write like a muggle)"Do you believe in magic, Am?" OMFG philosophy out of young Mr. Black and young Lass O'Connor LoL! I've learned to stop using stars - as in astrixes, because they don't show when it transfers to HTML. (HTML also doesn't like underscores or carrots ) I don't know why not, but whatever, right? Anyway it might be a bit different from my original "taste". Thanx to everyone who read and reviewed you are my heroes! This chapter is totally dedicated to you ppl and to Josh who is (usually) a correction God (although he missed that 'you're' 'your' thing which is now going to piss me off until the end of time. WHY DIDN'T I CATCH IT! GAAAAH! Anyway...) I acted like the fic was all complete and stuff but trust me it isn't! XD! Most of the chapters have at least some to them but trust me, we'll be here for a while. BTW if you send me a message or whatever cuz I sent you one first I may take a while to reply. I'm not great about regularly checking my e-mail. But I'll get around to it. LoL!_

_So away we goooooooo... _

_- The Evil Duck_

The Child of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black

-Part 2-

Magic

_August 1975 _

It cooled down a bit in August, just after the Dog Days, and the rain did the rest. Since July, Sirius Black became not so much a permanent fixture as an every day occurrence. Or maybe not even that. There was never any guarantee, no warning either, he'd just kind of show up, usually pretty sporadically. These bizarre appearances usually came late in the afternoon, just after tea when I was alone in the garage. Azure's prediction never came true, Sirius and I remained friends and nothing else. I thought I figured a lot out about Sirius. He seemed pretty straight forward: rich, which didn't make sense coming off of Grimmauld, loud, rebellious, and completely off his rocker. I just didn't realize what "off his rocker" really meant.

I never questioned normalcy or reality until late in August. Things just were. Basically if it existed it could happen, it was whatever it was, and it was real. Things that aren't real, things that can't be, and can't happen, aren't and don't. Period. Makes sense doesn't it? I learned otherwise. The world is a very weird place. Heaven help me to understand everything that's going on.

Anyway my perspective, I suppose that's what I'll call it, changed about two weeks before the end of August. Sirius told me his school started early, September first to be exact. As that day got nearer he became moodier, withdrawn, and he would frequently start to say, "I've got to tell you something--" but then cut out just before getting to the important bit. The day he finished that sentence, it was cool, and dark as night, and pouring something awful. Thunder, lightning, the whole biblical thing. As usual Sirius turned up in late afternoon, around four o'clock actually, while I was working on a 1972 Aston Martin DBS.

That was the last year they were made. Beautiful, sleek, they look just like spy cars (of course that _is_ what James Bond uses in the movies, at least in the one I saw, _"On her Majesty's Secret Service"_). 4.0 L DOHC I6 engine, improved design from the DB6, much more modern look, 2 door coupe, four seater, front engine (much safer than my Kombi), but it was replaced by the _Vantage_, and what I wouldn't give to work on one of those babies. But that's not really important to the story.

I had my head under the bonnet when Sirius came in, without a coat, umbrella, or anything else to keep himself dry, "Hey Am," he said. He'd taken to calling me that and at first I protested but it wasn't going to stop him. I've never been one for nicknames.

"Hello Sirius," I said looking up. He was so soaked it looked like he'd been swimming. Sirius shook his head and shoulders like a dog, splattering everything with water. "Why don't you just wear a coat?" I asked, he'd gotten the DBS wet, which is a crime against humanity.

"Haven't got one," he said in what seemed like all honesty, although I don't think Sirius actually has 'all honesty', "I've got to tell you something and this time I'm going to do it." He wasn't smiling or anything and his eyes settled to a dark gray like the sky outside.

"Shoot," I said. There was a square bulge in one of his front pockets, a pack of cigarettes which he reached for before realizing he was not allowed to smoke in the garage.

"Mind if I bend the rules just this once?" he asked, "I have to settle my head." I shook my head. Sirius has the most posh accent I've ever heard, there's something almost ancient about it. King Richard III may have had the same accent.

"Fine," he sighed deeply. He paced a little back and forth. It was few minutes before he spoke again. He licked his lips, "do you believe in magic, Am?"

It took a few moments for me to understand what he was saying. No logical, intelligent teenager should have any doubt about the answer. Magic is one of those things we leave behind in childhood, "no, of course not."

He fidgeted slightly and his face fell. He looked really upset. I couldn't figure out why, I mean to me 'magic' has always been a game. Father Christmas is magic, unicorns and goblins are magic, they aren't real. 'Magic' has always felt like such a childish word, something to outgrow.

But because of the look on his face I felt like I should somehow qualify it, or explain myself, "I believe in impossible things happening, miracles, sort of divine intervention, but I mean that's rare. And I obviously don't believe in monsters, or banshees, or ghosts, or witches or anything like that," I thought this seemed valid. I mean, I thought, there comes a time when you can safely leave that world behind. I was old enough, and so was he, to know the truth about the world. As a kid, babies come from a magic place, bank ATMs are magic, even the revving of a car engine starting up is magic. Anything too complex or perverse for little kids is 'magic,' but when you hit a certain age you learn the truth. Magic is demeaning and condescending.

"That's interesting," said Sirius brow furrowed as if he was thinking hard, he reached into his pocket but retracted his hand quickly. "I wonder how much that's got to do with everything."

"What?" I asked.

"Belief," he muttered, "I was just thinking, what if all everything came down to in this world is what we believe in? Like what if the Big Bloke upstairs only grants you favors if you believe he exists, or if you can only do magic if you believe in it. You know, how much of who we are or what we are depends on what we think. Just thinking," he shrugged.

"What is this all about?" I asked, I could tell he had something on his mind. His eyes had been tracing the bulky frame of my Kombi and he looked back at me with heavy eyes. It's hard to explain just what that means, but his eyes can suck the thoughts and breath right out of you. "I mean magicians don't actually believe in magic when they're doing it."

My uncle has always been a good magician. He showed me how to do coin tricks and card tricks and things from when I was very small. When I asked him how magic worked he said in that strong gruff voice he and my dad share, _"the hand is quicker than the eye but the magician's tongue has to be even quicker." _That has always brought the image of a hawker to mind, a salesman making a profit off the small and easily entertained.

"I'm not talking about magicians," he said almost exasperatedly, "I'm talking about real magic." Thunder shook around us and he glanced up at the door to our flat. "I really need to tell you something and before I do you have to promise me one thing." His voice was low, quiet, scary, and totally serious, his eyes were burning into mine.

"Okay, what?"

"You'll let me finish," he said, "I'm a wizard, Am."

I started to laugh as I closed the bonnet of the Aston Martin. It was so ridiculous. I thought maybe it was a joke. He had acted like he had something really important to tell me but there wasn't really anything at all. I looked back into his face, back into those eyes, and I forgot what I was laughing about. "You're not serious are you?"

"That's what it says on my birth certificate," he smirked, but only momentarily, " I am a wizard but it's not what you--"

"Are you saying you're a Satanist or something?" That was my first impulse and I couldn't hold it back, "some weird heathen-animal-sacrificing-pagan-druid thing?"

"You said you'd let me finish, so let me finish. It's not what you think, and this probably isn't going to make any sense if I just tell you, but," he laughed, "I do like that look on your face. You're probably about to burn me at the stake aren't you?" He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a foot long stick, it was made of a whitish wood that sparkled as if it had a finish on it.

"Don't tell me that's your wand," I said before I could stop myself.

"That's exactly what it is, yeah, 12 inches, dogwood and dragon heart string," he said nonchalantly. I had no idea what to do, suddenly Sirius was a raving loony, a complete psychopath, maybe not dangerous but I was still tempted to call the police.

"What heart string?" I asked. I remember thinking there's a phone in the office would he jump on me if I ran to get it? Would he pull out a gun? A knife? I know he's got a funny silver knife.

"Listen," he continued, "calm down, it's really hard to prove this to you unless I can show you," he looked down at the wand, "Ministry's going to be after me, but, well, considering all this Voldemort stuff... I'm probably safe. Bugger all, not like it matters anyway," he was thinking out loud. He raised his wand and said something in a funny language and something shot out the tip.

I'm not a big fan of the supernatural, of any unexplained phenomenon. I believe in what I can see, touch, taste, and smell, and what I know is true. I didn't believe there was much else to this world aside from the physical (there is a whole afterlife for the spiritual, after all). But this was real. This happened. I could see this flash of purple and black light, like discolored sunbeams, only smoky. The black made a thin black leather cord that wound around itself, forming a foot and a couple inches long hoop. The purple light condensed into a circle with a round hole near the top. The leather cord wrapped itself around the opened bit so it made a necklace. It eased down towards me, the purple thing cooling down into an amethyst. I couldn't speak.

"Like I said, it'll all be much easier to explain now. But besides that I'd noticed you don't have any amethysts, which is a shame, because purple really is your color," he said as if nothing at all had happened. How could this necklace be mundane to him? How could this even be happening? The laws of physics that I had just spent all year learning shattered around me. I reached out and took the necklace from where it was waiting for me, suspended at eye level. The jewel was still warm.

"This is like a dream," I whispered. That's the only way all this could have made sense. In a dream even the weirdest things make sense. But at the same time I knew it was happening. He was still talking and he seemed like he had been for a while when I looked up at him.

"So that's that. I figured I should tell you because I'm going back to school, Hogwarts, wizard school, in two weeks and-"

"They teach this?" I think I said although I could hardly hear it.

"Yeah they teach all sorts of stuff. Magical education. I wanted to be able to keep in touch with you at school and-"

"This is real?"

"Yeah. So I want to keep in touch with you while I'm at school and-"

"Is everyone like this?"

"Not everyone, only some people," he sighed, "I forgot that this is new to you. I mean, it's so ordinary."

"Ordinary? You just made a necklace out of nothing!"

"Right, but I've been able to do that since I was eleven. My whole family is wizarding. My mum's a witch, my brother's a wizard, my dad was a wizard, my cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, everyone going back into the middle ages."

"They could all do things like this? And there are other families too? Do you-do you-turn people into toads?" that was the first thing I could remember witches doing.

He shrugged, "Loads of people are wizards, not just families. Some wizards and witches come out of Mug--non-magical households and some Squi--non-magical people come from wizarding households. And if I really wanted to turn someone into a toad I could learn how. But I can fly a broomstick."

"You can fly a what?" Everything was spinning. It didn't make any sense to me. It couldn't make sense to him.

"Broomstick. I'm going to finish this sentence all right, I want to keep in touch with you when I go back to school and wizards don't send letters the same way as Muggles."

"As what?" feeling was starting to come back into me.

"Muggles. Right, you don't know that one either. Muggles are people like you, non-magical people. I guess I'll explain how mail works in your letter when I send one." He nodded to himself.

"Are you...human?" I asked, anything was possible, nature no longer applied. I felt like I was three years old again asking my uncle how magic worked.

He laughed, "of course I'm human! Hell, I guess if you didn't even know about...I've probably just done something stupid, haven't I?"

"No. Maybe. I don't know," I said, "still trying to let it sink in."

"No problem, let's see," his eyes were brighter again, which was good, he looked up at the ceiling and pointed at the overhanging light, "ah, yeah, electricity, haven't got it."

"Haven't got, what?" I looked up at the light because I was sure I missed something.

"Electricity, we use candles, magic, and fires. We don't really need it," he shrugged, "same thing for paper money." He took a silver coin and flipped it to me, I caught it numbly as a reflex and looked down at it. It had funny symbols and things carved into it, but no currency numbers or anything. The only word written in English letters was "Gringotts"

"Gringotts is the wizarding bank," he went on as if all of this was totally normal, "that's a Sickle. Seventeen sickles to a Galleon and twenty nine Knuts to a Sickle. Pounds and pence are more easily converted I suppose."

"There's a special bank?"

"Yeah, special government too, the Ministry of Magic, headed by the Minister of

Magic--"

"Hang on, you're a citizen of the UK, Lord Wilson of Rievaulx, Harold Wilson, he's prime minister--" it felt so stupid, I mean wouldn't I know if there was a whole 'nother government inside our own country? It all felt like a very surreal practical joke, even though I knew it wasn't.

"Oh no he's not," said Sirius, "he works with our Minister but ours is--"

"Wait," I stopped him again, "you mean the government knows it's real?"

"Yeah, I reckon so. But there has to be two separate ones, because the last time muggles and wizards tried to publicly coexist there was a lot of burning at the stake and killing curses involved so we just keep low profiles. Well," he smiled, "most of us. So the Minister of Magic is Regis Shaw. I have a question."

I wanted to say I have several hundred but I nodded for him to go on.

"What's with all that 'lord' and 'sir' and 'queen' nonsense?"

"Wait, you aren't even under the monarchy?" I asked.

"Neither are you really," he pointed out, "she doesn't do much does she? No royal terms or anything like that in the wizarding world. Just old blood lines."

"Is yours old? Most families aren't that old right?"

"No they aren't, mine's very old, most families aren't so...exclusive either... there's so much to tell you, isn't there?"

I nodded weakly.

"Let's see, well the ministry is divided into departments, I dunno anything about the Muggle government so you can tell me if it's the same."

"It is," I said and I felt like maybe I'd finally be able to understand.

"Magical Law Enforcement, loads of subcategories there, like who controls the aurors and stuff like that. An auror's a law enforcer, like a...fuck...er.. policeman only with a wand instead of a..what do you call it, again?" He put up his thumb and extended his pointer, "you know what I mean."

"A gun?"

"Yeah, that's it, a gun, thanks. Right, Magical Games and Sports, International Magical Cooperation he ticked them off on his fingers. Then he caught sight of his watch, his eyes got very big and dark, "shit," he muttered. "Okay, really quickly, not all wizards are good, just like how not all muggles are good. The wizarding government is corrupt as hell. The rich own it. My family owns it. My family, aside from me, are a bunch of inbred bigots who hate people who aren't purebloods, of wizarding decent going back at least four generations, I'm not like them, most wizards aren't, most wizards have at least some Muggle blood in them somewhere, I'd tell you more but I have to run because otherwise my mother will kill me." He said all this very , very quickly.

"Wait," I said, but he was gone. I wondered if it was magic. I was totally dumbstruck. And as I walked upstairs, I finally understand the full meaning of that word. I can't exactly explain it to you, but it feels like someone just pressed the mute button in your life and paused it. Then everything starts up again and there you are, ears ringing, eyes wide, completely at a loss for what just happened. I don't remember when I put the necklace on but it must have been while I was walking upstairs while I pocketed the coin. The necklace was just like any other now. I haven't really taken it off.

Azure was sitting at the kitchen table talking to his friend, Alexander, who I think may be something more, when I came upstairs from the garage.

Azure jumped back then looked relieved when he saw it was me. He arched an eyebrow, "you okay?" he asked.

"What?"

"You look terrible, like you've heard a banshee or something."

"Do you believe in magic, Azure?" I asked him honestly.

He snorted. "What kind of a question is that? No, why, do you?"

"Yeah," I fiddled with the leather strap. The world was suddenly a very different and much, much more interesting place, "I do."

_A/N: Hokay, another chapter under the belt. Now for the specialized Authors notes: _

_ Don't worry I have no idea what any of the car stuff means anyway, god bless the internet! LoL XD! _

_ Oh boy, Amethyst's rant about Paganism isn't going to win me any friends is it? Look, it's first person, her perspective. I don't actually believe that! I'm a non practicing Wiccan myself. I was practicing for about three years, but the point is I'm not saying that Pagans are bad. I know what Pagan means and everything (not "godless" like so many want to believe it means "nature worshiper"), I know that Easter is a holy Pagan celebration, I celebrate every equinox and Solstice so do NOT call me an Inquisitor, or a close minded...whatever. Call Amethyst and Sirius (you'll see) closed minded. Not me. XP!_

_ Some random terms are British-English. In America we say 'hood' (as in the engine is under the hood' in England they say 'bonnet', in the US we say 'trunk' (still talking about cars) in England it's a 'boot'. Sirius will probably use a lot more slang, like "bollocks" and stuff, so I'll define that later. _

_ I own that necklace. I'm wearing it right now. :) (except mine has a little silver bead above the amethyst, give it to her too if you want.)_

_ There's a small change in fic scheduling. The next chapter was originally "Letters From Hogwarts" I'm taking that out and flashing forward into the school year a bit, to a Sirius first person. Basically Sirius slowly but surely falling in love/lust/something/starting their relationship. That way Moony, Wormtail, and Prongs can finally come in. Just remember, this is NOT about their fifth year so I'm not going to go into the whole transforming into Animagi thing. Not now at least. Maybe in another fic. I've got loads of ideas. I'm thinking of doing a kinda Tonks/Lupin thing inspired by some piece of fan art on the fan art 100. Angst stuff to (really) come in the chapter after next, actually the first chapter I thought of. "Brothers in Blood" oh it'll be great. But the next chapter? Sirius ranting? Sirius's emotions? OMFG YEEEEEEEEEEES! Hopefully it won't take as long! LOL! _


	4. Interlude 1 Letter From Hogwarts

_A/N: Oh yay! I'm glad people like me! I wasn't going to post this because originally there was going to be a lot more to it, and I couldn't be buggered to write the whole thing. But this first part is done and it makes a nice little interlude (I hope!). Also it would be kind of odd to skip from August to Sirius's narration in January! XD So. Yes. Here 'tis. I want to say to aztecgold882 you totally rock my sox, my spleen, and a number of other amusing things! I can't get in touch with you and that makes me sad :( , but you're awesome! (And Australian, which gets you even more bonus points in the big book of people who rock! ) So this chapter is going out to you and your (not you're) grammatical genieness, awesome reviewerness, and being an Aussieness! YAY! w00t! The last chapter, quite frankly, sucked in my opinion, which is why I'm glad people liked it, because I didn't. ( Thanks to everyone who read and/or reviewed you totally made my PMS-ing week. LoL XD! (This is Amethyst first person...again.) _

_Yours, _

_The Evil Duck! _

_Keep reviewin'! XD_

_(Sirius chapter to come shortly, he's such a pain in the ass! Just try keeping him calm in first person for fifteen nanoseconds and you know why JKR killed him off XD!)_

**The Child of The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black**

-Interlude-

_September 1975_

Letter from Hogwarts

After Sirius left for the school year my life basically returned to normal. School started, and it's as boring as it usually is. I spoke to more people though. I don't know what solicited the sudden change, but it may have something to do with the lunatic currently in Scotland. But I swear if he does this to me one more time, and I mean just _one_ more time, I'm going to have to kill him. Thanks to Sirius I've learned something about owls: they like toast and get very angry when they are deprived it.

It was yesterday, the first Saturday after school started and I was tired. It'd been a long week: I have a full schedule, and Azure's started up the school year competition (where he has to compare his grades, which are always better, to mine), I have three essays yet to do (I haven't even started any of them, now that I think of it), the new accessories for my Kombi came in special from Germany so I've been in the engine most of my spare time, and I'd been to someone's house for the first time (really) since we moved. (Go ahead say it, I'm pathetic, but it's changing.)

Like I said it was yesterday, probably about 6:00 at night, cloudy, blustery, but not all that uncomfortable. I'd just gotten out of the shower and was in my bedroom when I got that weird feeling that I was being watched. Eyes are really funny like that, you can always tell when someone's watching you. Gazes sometimes hurt, or tingle, or bore, or, in the case of Sirius Black, take your breath away and leave you like jelly. You can feel eyes especially when someone is staring, because it feels like they're trying to dig a hole into the back of your neck.

My little eleven year old brother (Flax) has a friend named Linus who's a dirty little Peeping Tom. Since my brothers' and my bathroom shares a common door with my room it's easy to get from the sitting room to my room without much effort. That's why I have a lock on my side of the door. I knew he couldn't have been watching me from my door, and I had locked the bathroom door as well (always do. With four brothers it's something you learn very quickly.) I have no keyholes. It was really unnerving. I looked around for the source of the eyes and, not having found them in my bedroom, I looked to the window, wondering if someone across the street was pulling a _Rear Window_.

I didn't have to look far as there was a huge, ugly bird hovering just outside my window, using long feathery wings to beat the air. I don't scream. It's not in my nature. I can watch horror movies without so much as a peep, and I don't even jump when people leap out at me. So I didn't make any noise when I saw the owl, just clapped my hands over my mouth and stepped away from the glass. That was when I saw the note tied around...what I guess you could call its neck. It said: _Am - let the owl in, he has a letter for you -Sirius. _

Of course. Of course the nutter would do this to me. I yanked open the window really quickly then raced back against the door. I never thought I'd be afraid of something so stupid as an owl, and yet, there it was, sitting on my bed, and I was quaking with fear, as far away from it as possible. It had the letter tied around one of its scaly clawed feet. It was going to take a lot of resolve to get the letter. After gaining the nerve, and saying a few prayers, and begging it not to gore me, and having a mental battle with reality, I untied the red ribbon around the leg with my right hand, I had a very large heavy book in my left in case it decided to attack...however an owl can attack. The scroll fell off into my hand.

It started to eat the toast I'd left on my bedside table that morning, and although I originally planned on eating it later when I yelled at the owl it screeched really loudly at me which scared me even more. They really scream, owls, it felt like it shook my room with its voice and I knew that if it kept it up my parents would hear. So I just let it eat.

I opened the letter, this is what it said:

_12 September 1975 _

_Dear Amethyst - _

_I hope the owl didn't scare you too much, I know you aren't used to them. In the wizarding world this is how we send mail, we haven't got postmen, or mailboxes, or whatever else muggles might have. Owls are very intelligent and don't need to be paid (mind, I don't really know if you pay postmen, I'm assuming.) they just need to be fed. You have to send me mail via owl, it's the only way it'll get to me. The owl isn't vicious (nor are any owls really. They're pets, right? I mean they're pets in the wizarding world, but I don't think they are in the muggle world, are they? Oh well. If you're reading this you've probably figured out that it isn't going to hurt you.). So just write your letter, tie it to his leg , feed him, and he'll make it back. I've missed you very much so I've pulled lots of pranks in your honor. I know you're smiling, don't pretend you're not touched. _

_So far the year has gone fairly well. Filch, the caretaker here who believes in Medieval torture that he _must_ have learned from the Spanish Inquisition, hasn't caught my friends and I yet (he _HATES_ us, hangs us from the ceiling by our wrists, canes the bottoms of our feet, makes us wash off bedpans in the Hospital Wing or the awards spanning back about 1,500 years in the Trophy Room by hand(!), and/or sends us into the Dark Forest on the grounds (also dubbed The Forbidden Forest.) If you get sent in there the survival rate is...less than promising. He loves to see us in pain and calls us "a bunch of wild marauders," which, all-in-all, isn't a bad title.) _

_Most interesting so far is the fact that our History of Magic Teacher, Professor Binns, has hopped the twig. Don't feel to badly, he was ancient! Died peacefully in front of the staff room fire. Looked almost like he was sleeping. Er...I've just incriminated myself haven't I? Well I didn't do it or anything! (And for the first time in my life I'm saying that truthfully.) James, Remus, Peter, and I found a secret passageway we'd never seen before, 5 years at this bloody school and we're still trying to master the castle. Although, I do think we know more about Hogwarts than anyone else, that includes the teachers and the Headmaster. So, the passage let out in the staff room. We figured he was asleep and went to tiptoe past until Remus realized he wasn't breathing. This is generally a hint that someone has kicked the bucket . We made a mad dash back to Gryffindor Tower (Gryffindor is our house, and the best house in the school. No contest. Hands down.) and waited for Professor McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress, transfiguration teacher, head of Gryffindor House, and strictest bitch on the planet earth who can't take a joke for her life, made the announcement that he'd passed away. Binns is very boring. It is notoriously easy to fall asleep in his class, and that includes when he's talking about the goriest bits of the bloodiest wars. No, I don't mean he WAS boring, I mean he still IS boring. He's dead but his ghost is still teaching us. I know you "don't believe in ghosts," but like I've told you a million times they DO exist. They're just dead people with unfinished business. Pretty uncommon but they are real, we've got loads of them at Hogwarts, one in every house. Gryffindor's got Nearly Headless Nick, he's called this because his name is Nicholas and he's nearly headless. _

_Just because Filch hasn't caught us doesn't mean we've been good (I don't know the meaning of the word, thank-you-very-much.) In fact we've just begun work on a highly top secret project as well as (hopefully) finishing a potentially life-threatening endeavor. Can't say any more! I may have already said too much. _

_Now, onto more important business, have you taken my advice? Have you shown the world your beautiful smile? Have you made any friends yet? Spoken up in your classes? I want to know about everyone you meet and all the boys who ask you out. I have to make sure they are worthy of you. I may have to kill a few. But I promise most of them may live. Maybe. How's the VW? Any new motorbikes for yours truly? Old motorbikes? Motorbikes that no one would miss if they suddenly "disappeared"? _

_The second owl will be carrying a package for you. The chunky chocolate looking things are called Cockroach Clusters, and that isn't just a cute name. Those are for Azure when he's being a bastard or whoever else you may be angry with. The bags labeled "Chocolate Frogs" are milk chocolate, no frogs, and come with collectable wizard cards. I'm just warning you ahead of time, the pictures on the cards move, which I know (and I'm almost completely positive on this one because I've never seen the one's in your house do it) muggle photos don't do. _

_This may not even reach you as I don't know if owls can find muggle homes and/or he's been hit by an airplane (or something like that. I'm not quite sure if airplanes hit birds, but you understand what I mean. I think.), and/or you didn't let him in. So I might be writing this to no one. If that's the case I should probably stop now as I've just wasted a lot of time. (I'm not sure exactly how long. Too lazy to check these things.) So I'm going to end this letter either to you, Am, or to the atmosphere right now. _

_Send your reply with the owl, _

_Always, _

_Sirius _

I am going to kill him.

_A/N: (Oh also minor issue notes, I left out a close quotes in the last chapter. No one's pointed that out yet but it's during Sirius's speech about the government. I think it's pretty obvious where it belongs but I'm slow and didn't notice it until about 30 nanoseconds ago. XD! So don't e-mail me on it. 2) Amethyst is talking about finally understanding what 'dumbstruck' means. The period in that sentence should be a comma. Again I apologize and am thinking of sacking my grammar checker Josh XD! 3) there are a few unnecessary spaces and stuff. Whoops. Sorry!) By-the-by I'm sure most people have heard of Rear Window but if you haven't it's an Alfred Hitchcock movie where a guy breaks his leg in a fall and can't leave his apartment so he spends everyday spying through his camera on the family across the street where he thinks he witnesses a man kill his wife. I've never actually seen the movie myself XD!_

_Please no comments on the suckyness of this chapter. XD! Thanx!_


	5. Accidentally in Love

_A/N: You like me you really like me! Anyway now we move on to Sirius Black first person, which is so hard it's almost sad. To all of my readers this might seem a little offensive, but that's just Sirius's personality. Please don't take anything to heart! I don't like insulting people but Sirius is about to get very rude. Please read it anyway because it's only in the very beginning. I got major inspiration walking home the other day listening to the Shrek 2 soundtrack on Stanley, my iPod. (Tell me Puss in Boots and Donkey's version of Livin' La Vida Loca isn't the best thing ever!). The first song on the album "Accidentally In Love" by The Counting Crows gave me uber inspiration! I mean it's practically the anthem for this chapter! (So that's two songs whose copyright I may or may not be infringing on XD!) I must have listened to it eight times. So now without (much) further ado chapter 4! (Uncanon Black family tree. Way to lazy to go through book five and find it and it helps if the story just to use it like this. I mean...it's fan fiction anything is possible, right? LoL :D!) _

_-The Evil Duck! _

_PS: Lo's a' love ta everyone who reviews. Hugs, Kisses and CHOCOLATE! YAY:) I Less than three ( 3) you guys! w00t!_

**Warning!** _- Do not read on if you are easily offended or can't stand cursing. Very foul language to follow! XD! _

**The Child of The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black**

-Part 3-

Accidentally in Love

_January 1976_

There are three things, three very obvious lies, that every idiot in the entire bloody universe seems to believe except for me: pure bloodlines, god, and love.

"Pure" bloodlines only lead to one thing: inbreeding. My family tree looks a bit more like a wreath than anything else. I'm surprised I haven't got flippers coming off the back of my head. My father was my mother's first cousin, by blood. Lucius Malfoy, who is officially going to marry Narcissa Black when she graduates whether she wants to or not (not that she seems to care), is my first cousin on my mother's side, Narcissa's by marriage. Narcissa is my first cousin on my father's side. Them marrying wouldn't seem like a big deal if it wasn't for the fact that my mother is my father's cousin meaning that Narissa and Lucius are cousins too. Cousins marrying cousins leads to one thing, IQs going down the drain and quickly. Every single pureblood in the world has the metal capacity of a grapefruit. Myself included. Muggle royal family too. But at least a lot of muggles view their royal family as a bit of a joke, not like here where old families are treated like fucking deities. All we are are overbred pedigrees. We're no better than dogs.

The second, god, is possibly the most depressing. Some people spend their entire lives begging some all-powerful dictator to let them live, thanking him for letting them breathe. Let's just look at this one logically for a second, shall we? If there was a Big Bloke Upstairs why would he allow certain things to exist? If he's all powerful, why are there people who don't worship him the way he wants? And don't give me that "free will" BS. If he really wanted the world his way there would be no free will. He can do whatever he wants anytime he wants so why does he allow things to exist the way they do? Why does god, or whoever, allow things like child abuse, the Dark Arts, racism, and Slytherins if they are fundamentally wrong? Why would he have a Holy Land that's filled to bursting with nothing but killing? Finally, how does he/she/it decide who's loyal or good and who isn't? There are loads of evil, and possibly genocidal, fuck heads who think they're good (Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Orion Black).

But there's also the reverse: Azure O'Connor has locked himself very deeply in the closet. Too afraid to tell his parents what he is, afraid that god's going to smite him in his sleep, afraid of his more-than-just-friend Alexander because of what he means to Azure. He told Amethyst that he was gay sometime in October, crying his eyes out, making her swear not to tell their mum and dad. She stayed up with him the whole night, listening to him cry. Why? Because god told him he's a sinner. God's a nice person, isn't he?

The third is the most painful. Love. You hear about it all the time, in books, in classrooms, from James, it's ground into every inch of pop culture. They even have a whole bloody day dedicated to it. An entire sick making, pink and red, frilly, lacy, disgusting day every February the bleeding fourteenth. Love is just another name for sexual desire, animal urges...right?

Here's where my rant ends, with me sitting at breakfast in the Great Hall, waiting for the owls. Usually it's not something I look forward to, before this year the only thing I'd ever get from the owls was a Howler from my bitch of a mother. I still get about three a week and it makes me wonder, if she didn't send them would she forget how to make them? Or does she just want to kill two birds with one stone and shower Regulus in gifts and burst my eardrums at the same time? But since the year started I've been getting letters that have been typed up on a muggle typewriter that's missing the 't' key. The 't's are always written in by hand with a purple ball-point pen.

I never told Am exactly how wizards get mail until I actually sent her a letter. Call me naive but I didn't realize owls aren't really pets in the muggle world. (I mean I assumed that even if they weren't ordinary pets they weren't terribly unusual. I didn't know owls are supposed to be strictly nocturnal. Wonder how long they've been like that?) Seemed totally ordinary to me, but she was ready to tear me to shreds before dying of an aneurysm or two when she got my first letter. But it's been almost half a year since then and, although she still doesn't love the idea of having owls flying through her window, (insert Irish accent here: _"What am I supposed to tell my parents if they ever saw it? What if one dies in my room for some reason, or gets sick? What if one of them bites or something or...it isn't normal for me--it's not- look Sirius don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about..."_ etc.), she's used to it.

The mail comes in and Prongs stops talking. I'd hardly noticed he was talking at all until he suddenly stopped. He accepts a letter from home from his father's barn owl. Remus gets the _"Daily Prophet"_ and as a reflex, I hold out my arm for the crossword puzzle. James probably makes a comment about this but I'm not listening. I can't hear anything except my own brain. I'm thinking too hard again.

"PADFOOT!" Prongs calls me away from my thoughts, "pay attention to me, I'm talking."

"Is this new?" I ask him.

"What are you looking for?" He asks his eyes replacing mine on the owls, "expecting a Howler, or a letter from your mystery girlfriend?" He arches his eyebrows and takes a long swig of pumpkin juice.

"She's not my girlfriend," I remind him watching the birds, "and I'm not expecting a Howler, I don't think" It's just then I catch sight of my mother's owl, Ammut, and I swallow hard. Out of need for survival I've learned to pass Howlers off as a joke. I got one on the second day of school first year for "betraying the family" and ending up in Gryffindor. I was reminded that the last person to be sorted outside of Slytherin married "disgusting muggle filth." And I was sorted into a "worse" house than Andromeda's Ravenclaw. I am the first Black ever to be sorted into Gryffindor, and that's probably the thing I'm proudest of. I had two options with that first Howler, I could have done what I really wanted to and killed every single smirking Slytherin, taking special care on Bellatrix and Narsissa, or I could do what I do best, laugh it off. Make everyone forget. I remember I stood up, cleared my throat and said, "that was Cassiopeia Malfoy-Black, the cruelest and most delusional bitch ever to walk the Earth. We'll probably be hearing a lot from her, my advice is to buy earplugs." People laughed and no one thought I cared.

I didn't.

I still don't.

I never will.

Why should I? But Ammut spirals down to Regulus who welcomes it and unwraps the chocolate tied to its leg.

The owl I sent, who doesn't have a name, lands next to me. I take the letter away from it. Her letters are always on the same paper: unlined, white, folded in half, stapled twice, with my name written on the front in her funny, half-cursive handwriting with very long 's's.

"Oi!" James calls, "I've been trying to insult you but it's very hard when you aren't paying attention!"

"Sorry," I say, "shoot."

"If she's not your girlfriend, then you're going through a bit of a dry spell, mate. When did you break up with Artemis, for what, the eighth time?"

"Sixth," I correct him. Artemis Neilson was my first girlfriend at Hogwarts and my first muggle-born girlfriend. Our first relationship lasted approximately three weeks, but we've had at least one "relationship" every year since. She's in Gryffindor, our year, beautiful, funny, smart, your typical description of a girl. Don't get me wrong, I do really like her. I just don't care that much.

"Whatever. So how long has it been?"

"I dunno," I'm lying, "a month or two."

"Right," Prongs says, "this is the first time you haven't had a girlfriend since I've met you. If you aren't dating the muggle in London, and you haven't decided to take up priesthood, then I don't know what's wrong with you. Loads of girls keep asking you out, why are you turning them down?"

Good question Prongs, I don't know. "I haven't been."

"Sure you have--" but James's attention has been diverted by a redhead and his mouth ceases to function. "E-e-e-evans...hi!" She keeps walking like she hasn't heard him (although I'm almost positive she has) and leaves The Great Hall.

"Prongs, what do you think when you look at Evans?" Why am I saying this?

"What do you mean what do I think? I think, I think 'god she's beautiful, she's perfect.' and I'm perfect too, so as I've said over the years, Padfoot, it's fate." I roll my eyes. He takes a wedge of his grapefruit, which now I can only think of as a pureblood, and swallows it, "why do you ask?"

"No reason," I'm reading the letter and can't be bothered. She sent a picture with it.

_School photos_, she explained, _turned out horribly, but the yearbook committee says that if we're really unhappy we can send them a different one. So I'm thinking sending them this one instead. What do you think? _

Perfect. She's in the garage, leaning up against her VW, (which is in perfect working condition now), in a pair of worn blue jeans, a purple top, and the amethyst necklace I gave her. Her hair is hanging loose and shimmering. It reminds me of summer. Her eyes are bright and intense, brought out by the purple she's surrounded by. She's smiling, and even in a picture I'm defeated by that smile. I can't think of anyone who wouldn't be---

"Oi! You're doing it again!" Prongs flicks a bit of egg at me.

"Sorry, what?"

"Ignoring me while I'm talking to you," he squeezes the grapefruit juice into an empty goblet, one rind at a time, before drinking it. "Why did you ask about Evans?"

"I told you, no reason," I tell him.

That's not true, but the real reason will cost me two galleons. James and I make bets on everything, one such bet was made in first year when James first decided he was madly in love with Evans. I must have been in a very, very bad mood because I all out said "there's no such thing as love." Usually I just let the idiots believe whatever the fuck they want and keep quiet. James told me that I was being jaded and that he'd prove to me love exists. So, as usual, we made a bet:

I guaranteed him that not only will I never fall in love (or even believe in it) but Evans will never date him. James, in turn, guaranteed me that even if I don't fall in love I'll believe it in one day and that Evans is already madly in love with him she's just afraid of the intensity of her feelings. This became very pricey four galleon bet total, two for he and Lily Evans ending up together, two for me and my supposed battle.

I think I just lost.

What am I saying?

I am NOT in love.

I can't be in love.

No such thing as---

"What did she send you that you're so interested in?" Prongs reaches out for the photo as I come back into the real world.

"No," I hold it away from him. Too embarrassing, too personal, now those are two things I never thought would come between me and James.

"Come on," he's grinning as we get up to go to lessons. I slip the photo into my pocket. First up is Potions so we head down toward the dungeons. Prongs, Moony, and Wormtail are talking. I don't know what they're saying, I can't seem to focus on their voices, or even where I'm walking. I think I'm going forward solely out of habit. It's weird, nothing feels like it usually does. I've been like this for the past few days, spacey, I guess you could call it. I haven't even taunted/beaten Snivelly Snape. My mind has been...elsewhere.

She's a lot like her letters in a way, more impulsive and wild than she seems. They look so neat and organized (except for the mix-matched 't's.) Then when you read them you realize she bounces from topic to topic as if on a sugar high, never indenting, writing until the pages are just solid blocks of text. Sometimes she bangs the keys too hard and you can feel the writing through the back, that's usually when she's angry or excited about something. She gets angry about things like someone picking or beating on one of her brothers or a friend of hers. She's fiercely protective over those she's close to. Would defend them to the death. She's a Gryffindor, or the muggle equivalent there of.

Boys have asked her out. She dated one of them, Jeremy or Jacob or Jack or something. I remember how mad I got. I don't know why...it's not like...I mean_ I_ was dating someone at the time, but for some reason that didn't matter. I wanted to be that guy. They broke up because she felt he was too dominating, too controlling. Cheers.

My head feels really light and I want to laugh. No reason why, I just do. I'm just happy. I haven't done anything to make me feel happy, no pranks, no snogging, no nothing. But there's just this overwhelming lightness.

"Sirius!" James says as Remus snaps his fingers in my face.

"What do you want?"

"Oh Mr. Snippy," says James across the table.

Apparently Slughorn has already given out the directions and now I can see them scribbled on the board. I don't even remember coming into the dungeons. I have no idea how long I was just...out there. In London.

I've been in her room, always with the door open though because her father would kill me if he ever thought something was up. A 6'6" Irishman with 200 pounds of muscles is not someone I want to have angry with me. I may have the IQ of a grapefruit, but even grapefruits want to live to see adulthood.

Her room faces the street and the parking lot in front of the garage. The window is small but lets in a lot of noise and light. She likes it that way and the curtains are always open. Her bed has an old quilt on it that a grandmother made. Her drawers have clothes rammed into them, no neater than mine. She has car magazines and newspaper clippings piled on her desk. She doesn't own any dresses and, aside from her school uniform, no skirts. She has a corkboard that was empty the last time I was there, but she says she has since filled up with pictures she wants to show me.

And one picture I gave her. A moving photograph just to prove they were mundane. People might think there's been another reason why I sent it.

Something stupid and pathetic.

Something about being there when I'm not there.

But I'm not like that.

Her typewriter is blue and predates the electric ones. It was her mother's when she was in art school, but Amethyst has chipped away most of the paint splotches. She has trouble getting the ink ribbons into place so the outside of the case is smeared with the stuff. She let me play with it on more than one occasion and actually saved a few pages of me just typing what I saw in the room. Typewriters are harder to use then they look. She thought my attempts were pretty funny and I suppose they were. I remember the first time I heard it 'bing' at the end of a line I nearly had a heart attack! Amethyst was laughing so hard at me she fell off the bed where she was sitting.

But I got my own back, I have what she wrote with a quill. It's funny. I never thought using a quill was a skill, it's just something I've always used that I thought everyone always used. I remember her sitting there with her tongue sticking out trying not to drip the ink on her carpet. Her fingers were stained jet black with the ink, the bottle was leaving rings on the paper. Her letters were thick, wet, and awkward. She ended up making something that resembled a Freud inkblot. She eventually was able to write semi-legibly. When I complimented her on the "improvement" she splattered me with ink from the quill.

She doesn't like to sit at her desk so she probably writes to me sitting on her bed facing the window and the world outside, or even on the steps to the garage just for the sake of being there. I call them oil fumes, she says it's her favorite smell and that I just don't understand. She likes to be able to watch over her flock of cars. It's like she's baby sitting them.

Sometimes I've caught her talking to them about their V8 engines (whatever the hell that means), kilometers per gallon, and weird things like that. She throws out fuzzy dice and the other stupid things people hang from the rearview mirrors of their cars. Or she tries to throw them out and her dad stops her. "It's insulting!" she says, "positively hideous and stupid. I would never ever subject my Kombi to that!"

I remember how happy she was when she got the VW working. Her Kombi. Her baby. She drives it everywhere now whether she needs to or not.

"Sirius!" Prongs throws something heavy at me, "pay attention! Bloody Hell, it's like talking to a wall!"

Remus is trying to take notes and is peering over the edge of the cauldron, "you know what's pathetic?" he says, "my mum can make this potion and I can't." Remus's mum is a muggle. Peter is looking nervously at me. With me off in god-knows-where James is basically doing all the work. Most all the tools we use in potions have some silver in them, and along with Remus's Furry Little Problem come an allergy to silver that basically gives him third-degree burns every time he touches it. This is one of the reasons why he's awful at potions. Aside from that he hasn't really got an excuse, but then again I haven't really got an excuse for being bad at History of Magic.

Everything seems to be reminding me of her. I'm walking down the hall to Transfiguration now, apparently slower than usual and Prongs falls back to walk with me. He's looking at me like he's worried. "What's gotten into you?" he asks.

I don't know.

I think I'm in love.

But love isn't real.

I think I'm in love with Amethyst.

But love doesn't exist.

I can't stop thinking about her.

I want to be in London.

I want to be there with her now.

Everything reminds me of her.

"Nothing."

"Right. Look mate, you haven't been entirely like yourself for the past week, something's on your mind. You've been down right...peaceful, and it's starting to get eerie," James says, "what happened? You're like a bleeding zombie today, just tell me what's up."

What do you want me to say James? I have no idea what's wrong with me.

Or rather I do know and that's what's worrying me.

My life is beginning to sound like a bad song and I can't stand it.

But I love it.

And I'm happy.

So here goes nothing. I reach into my pocket and I pull out two galleons and hand them to James.

"What are these for?" he asks.

"Well you aren't with Evans you are you?" I tell him.

James looks confused for a fraction of a second, then he smiles, then he starts to laugh, "I knew it! I knew it! What did I tell you, mate? So it's your girlfriend, right? Amethyst O'Connor."

I'm grinning and I think for the first time in my life I'm blushing. My cheeks are burning. "Shut up."

James laughs harder and I hit him on the arm.

Love.

It's such a funny feeling.

I've never been...happier.

So what's the problem?

Why did I hate it for so long? Why do I...Why did I hate love?

I feel like the world has just been taken off my shoulders.

Three words I never thought I'd say:

I'm in love.

_A/N: Tell me that's not kind of cute! Like I said Sirius is a prick., I believe in God(dess/higher power) and love (not bloodlines though thank -you-very-much). So no hate mail on that account. (He calls god the Big Bloke Upstairs strictly because it made me laugh.) Maybe I should just get some less opinionated characters! LOL! I just realized the timing thing between he and Amethyst doesn't work (I mean if he came out of the broom closet two weeks before he went back to school, they seem to have spend a lot more time together than that. Christmas Holidays probably... I dunno, I should stop nerfing myself XD) (Note on James's grapefruit: you can't tell me you don't do that everytime you eat a grapefruit, squeeze all the juice out of the rind I mean. XD!) In addition to this long fic I've got some other things I'm working on. I've decided to unoffically take up the fan fic 100 challenge to make my friend Josh, who is an awesome artist, unoffically take up the fan art 100 challenge. Anyway if you don't know what it is you're given a bunch of single word prompts (100 to be exact XD) and you have to write one fic for each. Let's see...if I ever finish the September 1st thing (which I do hope to eventually do!) that will be "beginnings". The weird parady I have up is for the prompt "what." This one will either be "Purple" or "Family" I don't know which. XD! "Purple" will probably be for another more mushy kind of fic later. Like this isnt't mushy enough! (To see the full table click my blog. Homepage link.) Don't you wish you didn't have to go to school and just write fanfics all day? Or maybe instead of something pointless like gym we could have...fan fic courses. That would be the most awesome school: Slash 101, Smut-shop, Character Class (class one, keeping your OC from becoming a Mary Sue), Lingo, 'Ship building (OMFG it's a pun! A really bad one (okay on par with Sirius/serious but you know) but a pun none the less!), etc. A girl can dream can't she? XD!_


	6. Interlude 2 Getting There

_A/N: waves: hi! I wish you all a happy Valentine's I forgot to mention that on the previous chapter and I didn't realize I put it up on Valentine's Day until Jennie pointed it out. Which is pretty cool. This story is getting longer and longer all the time. Any way I want to give a special shout out to harrypotterfan52 you, my fair lady, rock my world:). Big shout out to you as soon as I can get my muse back and finish Peter's chapter for September 1, 1971. It's almost done. Seriously. Sorry about the dely I've been sick. The next chapter should be up shortly. Anyway...wish me luck, I'm sending in a submission to the Iowa Young Writer's Studio! (I don't know how to make a nervous smiley but it goes here.) _

_Truly and Always_

_-The Evil Duck_

**The Child of The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black **

-Interlude II-

Getting There

_January 1976 _

Remus looks around the room. It's seven o'clock in the morning on Friday, he's probably been awake for hours, but I'm just getting up, as is Peter. We are only awake because Remus has lit all the candles in the room, pulled back our curtains, and yanked off our blankets to make sure we won't be late for classes. Bloody Prefect.

"Where's Sirius?" he asks. Sirius is usually the last one awake, and the hardest to wake up. If left to his own devices Sirius would go to bed at about three in the morning and wouldn't wake up before noon. This is why Remus never leaves Sirius to his own devices. Sometimes it's like having McGonagall as a roommate.

"He isn't here," I shrug.

"I can see that," says Remus. Wormtail is now interested too.

"No I mean he isn't at school, he left at about four," I tell them. "'He isn't at school?'" Remus repeats.

"He's in London," I say.

"He's _where_!" Moony looks at me disbelievingly.

"London, you know it's the capital of England, really big city in the south, Sirius lives the--"

"I know _what_ London is, but what is he _doing_ there on a Friday in the middle of term!" It's that badge I swear, his Prefect badge is the source of all this eerie authoritativeness. Without it on he's just Moony, with it on he's the Prefect formally known as Remus Lupin.

"He's going to talk to Amethyst."

"On a Friday in the middle of term?" Remus repeats himself.

"Yeah, it's very important," I nod throwing myself out of bed searching for my glasses, which always manage to get themselves lost.

Remus inhales deeply, "tell me exactly what's going on."

"Right," I say and I begin to tell him...

"I couldn't sleep. It must have four in the morning (or something like that, it was far too early to actually figure out what time it was) but there was something keeping me up. Actually, more accurately , it was the lack of something keeping me up. Sirius was still awake so he wasn't moaning, rolling around, talking, or doing any of the usual bizarre things he does in his sleep, it's really harmonic to me after five years of having to deal with it. I have trouble falling asleep without him making his weird dog noises. I mean, when they're absent because he's with...female company...I can manage to fall asleep because he isn't smoking, well not in front of me at least. But last night...er...this morning he was. You, Moony, were choking most of the night. I was going to shout at Sirius but my brain wasn't working properly. Don't you hate that feeling when you aren't awake, but you aren't asleep and no matter how desperately you want to yell at the stupid prick in the bed next to yours you don't have the strength to open your mouth?

"So, I rolled over and fell out of bed and banged my head against the floor. I reached up to grab my glasses and the blurry shape that had pulled back the drapes to his bed turned out to be Sirius. He had a lit cigarette in his mouth and had a small box opened on his bed.

"'What?' he asked as if I'd done something wrong. Me of all people.

"'Good morning to you too, Padfoot,' I nodded and some how managed to get into a sitting position, 'go to bed, will you? You're keeping some of us up.'

"'Not tired,' he said, blowing one of those annoying smoke rings, which really can't be terribly hard to do. You know, I've finally worked out the spell he uses to make all those funny smoke shapes, the dragons, ships, lions, and all that. I could probably do it. Scratch that, of course I could do it, I just don't want to.

"'Right then,' I said. He had letters spread out all over his bed and when I got closer to have a look at them he yanked the curtain closed.

"'D'you mind?' He asked from his bed.

"'Yes actually,' I told him. He didn't respond. 'What's wrong now?'

"'Nothing,' He said.

"'What is it?' this time I pulled open his curtains. He's kept all of her love letters in a box under his bed or something like that. 'What the bloody hell are you doing?'

"'I...y'know...I...love her, James...' he said pathetically, hopelessly, very unPadfoot like in most respects."

Wormtail makes a small starstruck 'ah' noise, as if he's in awe of Sirius for falling in love. He's just never out of awe I suppose, but around me it's understandable. I don't know what he sees in Sirius.

"'Yeah, I know. I got two galleons because of it,' I said."

"Why did you get two galleons?" Remus interrupts. He isn't part of this bet.

"I bet Sirius back in first year that he would believe in love by the end of our seventh. That was two galleons, but there are also two galleons on whether Evans and I will wind up together in the end."

Remus starts to laugh and Peter soon joins in.

"What?"

"I want in on this," says Remus, "I could use the galleons."

"But how are you going to pay me when you lose?" I ask Remus.

"Oh," he says, "I think I'll manage. So two galleons that you and Evans will never date."

"Fine," I say, "but I don't accept IOU's."

"I'm in too! I'm in too!" says Peter.

"I'm going to be bleeding rich," I say.

Remus snorts and Peter giggles. "Continue," says Remus.

"So Sirius said, 'but she's--look, you're like a brother to me. The only family in the world that I give a rat's arse about, but she--well, she's almost my best friend, mate. We're friends, nothing more. What if I...?' He stared at his bed.

"'Hang on,' I said, 'are you trying to tell me that Sirius Black, self proclaimed 'sex god' and resident man-whore of Hogwarts doesn't know how to ask a girl out?'

"'This is different,' he blushed, he's been doing that a lot lately and it's starting to creep me out, 'she's different.' He looked back at me and saw that I'd picked up one of her letters and he went to grab it from me. Of course I was standing and could turn away from him, he was sitting on his knees and at a bad angle, in other words I easily evaded him. You should read the mush they've been sending to each other, and he thinks he's nothing but a friend to her. I've never heard a bigger load of tosh.

"It's like _Dear Sirius, my friend Ella keeps trying to set me up with her brother, but he's no where near as much fun as you,_ and _Dear Sirius I miss you so much! I can't wait until I get to see you again!_ and they're all signed _Love_, or _Always_, well, the recent ones at least. The early ones aren't so mushy and are signed _from_ or something boring like that, anyway, I read the letter out loud and Sirius got really mad at me and his eyes turned something like red , I swear, and he would of killed me had I not tossed back the letter.

"'I never thought I'd ask you this James, but what to I do?' He said.

"I've to tell you I was horrified. But I told him what I was thinking, 'honestly, mate? you've got to tell her. You've got this chance, this one shot, to be happy for the rest of your life--'

"'But what if--?' he said

"'What if nothing,' I like to think I sounded rather wise," (Remus snorts) "'you never know until you try something, right? Capi every Diem? Live in the moment, don't think of the consequences? Do what's in your heart? Isn't that supposed to be your territory? What's the worst that could happen, mate?' I think I may be becoming a Legimancer because when he looked at me I saw everything he thought could go wrong.

"'How do I tell her?' he said, 'write a letter? _Dear Am_,' he mimed writing in the air. I snorted at the nickname and he threw a pillow at me. _'I'm actually falling in_ -- Hell, do you know how hard it is for me even to say that word?'

"'Very,' I guessed and he nodded. 'You should tell her in person,' I told him.

"'The next holiday is Easter and I don't plan on going to "the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black" for that. I want to see her, but I don't want to have to deal with my family...I want to see her now.' "'So what's the problem?' I asked.

"He looked up at me, 'I don't really know. Tell the professors I died or something, I'm going to London...'

"I said, 'Padfoot, there's only small problem.'

"'That being,' he was already getting dressed.

"'How are you planning on getting to London. It's a bit far away mate, us being in Northern Scotland and all.'

"'Point,' he said, you could see the little gears turning in his head, 'Right, I'm going to apperate.'"

"You're joking," Remus interrupts, "we haven't quite figured it out yet! For all you know Sirius could be spread out all over Britain."

"That's brilliant!" said Wormtail with his eyes glowing, "I wish I could do that!"

"Nah," I say, "we're fifteen year old Animagi, we can do anything. Besides Sirius and I have done it a few times already. It isn't that difficult. I don't see why we're supposed to wait until we're seventeen to--"

"Because it's dangerou--," Remus starts but rolls his eyes, "I don't know James. So what, he snuck into Hogsmede in the middle of the night and Apperated across the country?"

"Yeah, why?" I ask.

"Nothing," he says in that Prefect way of his, "no reason at all. I should have suspected as much. So what, if we don't hear from him by noon we should assume he's dead?"

"Nah," I say, "we should give him at least until tomorrow. If he lost a leg he should have retrieved it by then."

_Elsewhere:_

You learn things in life, right? Lesson number one for January 28, 1976:_ never try to apperate great distances when the most you've done is from one side of Hogsmede to the other._ I'm lucky I'm still whole. The question is, where the Hell am I?

Let's see, it's about four AM in Scotland and it's still dark here, so that means I'm hopefully in the same time zone. Okay, I'm defiantly in a Muggle town, which is why it's good that it's still dark out. There's an open petrol station, sign's in English, always a plus. So I go into the little office where there's a bloke sleeping behind the counter. I say "Hello," he doesn't move, I say it louder, nothing.

"Oi! Mate! Wake up!" That's got him.

"Sorry 'slate. You been there long?" He says without really raising his head of the counter. He's got a very thick Irish accent and that's got me worried. Sure, it wouldn't be as far as that time James accidentally wound up in Hawaii, but still pretty far off the mark. I'm praying he's an immigrant or something and I'm at least in the right country.

"No, er, I was just wondering what town I was in exactly?" I ask. He raises an eyebrow and smirks a little. It's not an arrogant smirk more of a 'you're worrying me' kind of thing.

"Innsmoth, just outside of Cork," he says.

"Cork?" Oh fuck, "as in Ireland? I'm in Ireland?"

"Yeah, why? Where are you going?"

"London," I'm already past the pumps.

"By foot?" he calls.

"Not quite," I say, "you're dreaming."

"I figured that already," he calls, and I'm gone with my fingers crossed.


	7. If The Sky was Spinning In a Washing Mac

_A/N: OMG you have NO IDEA how HAPPY you guys make me! I swear! YAY! (I've got 1,000 hits! I should have a party!) Okay, there's now an HP club at my school and I'm Spazzing! Like with a capital S. Im sorry this took so F'ing long, I've been wiped out lately between my SATs and AP tests coming up. God I HATE being a junior so I've had no time for Fan fiction. So this has been in the works for WEEKS. I hope the other chapters will come up sooner. Now I'm going to dork out and do what I've always wanted and give little uber personalized thing-ys for reviews. Hee-hee!_

**champion-of-moral-indignation**_: Thanx so much:bows: I heart characters. I know that sounds bizarre, but personally I think they're more important than plot. To Explain: We see the world through the characters, a plot, even a brilliant one, with 2D characters is unspeakably boring and hard to concentrate on. A lot of ppl find that with LOTR, also, Josh has heard me say this 1,000 times, characters are human beings only in another world. They have to have a place they start from, a personality (as district as a finger print) and a place they are headed. They have to have opinions, pet peeves, quirks, everything real people have got. And whatever you do for/to a character (or what they do for/to themselves) has to be reflected in their actions and life after that. The social and emotional and realistic rules that exist in our world are the same as in there's. The good part is once you've got a character down pat you can basically write these things in your sleep. Just drop em in a situation and they go on from there. That's my thingy. _

**harrypotterfan52**_:huggles: _

**aztecgold882**_: You have me saying chappie now! Oh don't worry Amethysts got a lot to say in this chapter. :huggles: thanx! I've got my fingers crossed and they wont be uncrossed until I hear back from the guys at the IYWS. Its making it very difficult to type. _

**Intel Master**_: Everyone meet Josh. Josh is an HP fanboy. Yay for Josh!_

**hopeislost908**_: (looks over name. Blinks. Rereads. slaps forehead.) dur! its all one word. Sorry threw me off. Im kind of slow sometimes. Awwww! Thanx! I love having my ego stroked:D! So yeah: advice write during Chem b/c no one cares about it. jk(but not really). _

**alexekia2222**_: Yay! _

_Finally..._

_-The Evil Duck_

**The Child of The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black **

-Part 4-

If The Sky was Spinning In a Washing Machine

_January 1976_

When Sirius Black walks into a room it immediately turns upside down and can never right itself again...

...which isn't always a bad thing...

I was in history class, not really paying attention, just trying to stay awake when he came in. It's very difficult for me to do anything but sleep in Mr. Steins class because nothing ever really happened in history. In the thirteen hundreds people protested and complained about the poll tax and the king, in 1976 people protest and complain about the poll tax and Prince Philip is certainly a card, isn't he? We never learn anything from history, so why bother?

I was doodling in my notebook thinking about Sirius, actually. Something I've been doing a lot. My friend Mya kept insisting that I like him. _Like_-like him. A term I haven't really used since primary school, but found myself saying more and more when trying to defend myself against Mya.

"I don't!" I'd say, "we're friends! I like him, but I don't _like_-like him. Just like him. As a friend. We're close."

I had made the mistake of saying "I love him", to Mya meaning that I love him as a _friend_ and she never let me forget it.

(I thought I loved him like that, or rather I didn't think but I said so anyway. I'm not an incredibly emotionally open person, I don't cry at the end of movies, I don't have rabid political debates. I don't have many confrontations at all, actually, and those I do have are always about something personal happening right now. If some git is picking on Kristen because she accidentally let slip that she has a crush on Mr. Wolf then I'll tell them off, if someone calls Azure a dirty faggot or a Nancy Boy I'll threaten them, if someone tells me Flax smells odd I'll agree with them and let it go. It's smarter to keep your mouth shut and hands clean. People will associate you with any given stupid action and you'll never ever live it down. So I kept my growing crush (I _hate_ that word) on Sirius quiet. It's my business after all, my feelings, and my fantasies.)

Mya MacGraw is a rational person, which one of the reasons she's my best friend, that's why it surprises me that she got on my case about Sirius as much as Kristen Vicks (another good friend of mine), who believes in Prince Charmings.

"It's fate," Kristen'd say when I'd mention I'd gotten another letter, "he's going to come house and sweep you off your feet and profess his love to you." Her eyes would get all soft and gooey when she said this. Mya and I would usually snort together. Funny thing is, she was close to right.

I was there in Mr. Steins European History, drawing pictures of dogs, hearts, and Mr. Stein being run through with a stake (Sirius's history teacher is dead, why can't I be lucky too?) when there was a knock at the door. Mr. Stein stopped talking, though I hardly noticed it and only looked up when I heard a very familiar voice say, "Hello, have I got the right room?"

Couldn't be.

But it was.

Sirius leaned in the doorway surveying the classroom until his eyes, gray-blue and warm at the moment, fell on me and he grinned broadly. I mouthed "_what are you doing?_" and he shrugged. Most of the class was watching him now. Many of the girls with a good deal of interest. Kristen, who was seated next to me, was literally drooling. Mya poked me in that back of the head and asked, "that's him, isn't it?"

"Can I help you?" asked Mr. Stein harshly.

"I should hope so, sir," said Sirius straightening to look at my teacher, "I'm looking for one Amethyst O'Connor, it's very important."

"Will it take long?" asked Mr. Stein.

"I'm not sure sir," said Sirius, "Head Mistress Cooper sent me, sir." _He did his research_, I thought. That is, in fact, my head teacher's name.

Sirius was obviously not a student here. His uniform was the same gray I think every British student is forced to wear but there was something..._off_ about it. Indescribably odd like so many other things about Sirius, but Mr. Stein bought it and told me to hurry up.

"What the Hell are you doing here?" I asked Sirius as soon as we were alone in the hallway. "How did you even get here?"

"Hello, Am, I missed you too," he said warmly.

"I–hello, Sirius, I think you know I've missed you. Now how did you get here!"

"Magic," he winked. It's infuriating to know he was telling the truth.

"How did you know where I was?" I asked.

"Azure told me," he said, "is he ill?"

I nodded. He's been getting sick a lot lately. It's really been scaring my parents. He's worried himself ill.

"Do you have the day off school?" I asked.

"No, why?" He asked confusedly.

"Then shouldn't you be at school?" I asked him.

"Probably," he shrugged. "I would have been here sooner but I got lost."

"I thought you got here using magic," I said. We were walking up the stairway now, Sirius was leading and I was following, as he knew where he was going. The third floor of St. Columbia's is deserted. Since the Blitz a good portion of it is blocked off, the belief being that if you're closer to the ground when the bomb hits it'll be easier to bury you. Thirty years later it's just habit.

When we came to where it's usually blocked off Sirius managed to push the door open without problem. He said, "I tried to Apperate, well I succeeded because I'm here but--"

"Apperate?"

"Disappear in one place and appear in another. A bit like...what do muggles call it...teleporting? Is that a word?"

Sirius is different from anyone else in the world, I must have decided this then. Not just because he's a wizard, because apparently there are loads of them floating around and I've just never noticed them, he's just incredibly unique.

They say everyone in the world is special, but I think that's a load of tosh. People tend to conform; girls wear makeup, boys play football. That's what bothers me about secondary school, everyone feels like they have to fit into a mold. Then we grow up into that. I might not wear makeup and I might play football but Im hardly anything special anyway. I'm just a _tomboy_, a different class of ordinary, but ordinary none the less.

People are the same. Sirius isn't. He's not quite _rebellious_, because rebellious means that you were something like what you're going against. It implies a relationship to the norm. He's not a rebel, because he's never been within a hundred yards of the norm. He's something else entirely. He's only himself.

"Yeah," I told him.

"Well, I ended up in Ireland first, bit off the mark, you'll agree. Then I bounced around every conceivable inch of the UK before I finally ended up here. In front of The Tower of London actually, which is pretty lucky," he said.

"You know, this is blocked off for a reason."

"I'm sure," he said closing the door behind us, "I just wanted a private place to talk."

"If the building falls in on us--"

"Then we'll be too dead to know the difference," Sirius said. He looked over at me and his eyes fell on something above my chest and he smiled. A real smile, not one of his smirks or quick half smiles. It was hot, as in thermally, and I felt my cheeks reddening under his gaze.

"What?" I asked in a voice I didn't recognize.

"You're wearing the necklace." He gestured to it.

He is, I'd decided shortly after meeting him, the most handsome person that could ever exist. Something about him doesn't quite look _normal_...maybe not even _possible_. But more than that, there's something about the way he looks at things, the simplicity of his views as well as the actual color changing gaze.

"I love..." I began looking into his eyes. We'd come to a stop now, in the abandoned hallway, just standing up to our ankles in dust as if it was normal. He was close to me, so close it was making me want to step back, or maybe forward, my brain wasn't exactly working properly. There was something about how he was looking at me. Something in his eyes. Something in him.

There's an old saying everyone's heard, 'eyes are the windows to the soul'. Sirius is proof of that. I'm not a poet, I don't pretend to understand the spiritual piece of humanity, that's what's there for God to work out, but you can tumble into Sirius's mind, you can get lost in his eyes. It's like staring into the sky, if the sky was spinning in a washing machine. "...It," I said quickly and maybe too loudly, catching myself. The world came back around me as Sirius broke the gaze.

"I'm glad," he said a little hoarsely, "I'm glad you love..._it_."

"Yeah," we stood there for a few moments. The smile disappeared slowly before he began to talk.

"I have to tell you something but I don't know how to," he said quietly.

"Well, that's a problem," I told him grinning. He half smiled. It was sad. Not sad, just worried. My smile faded. "What is it?"

He looked away from me, "You know," he said slowly and pensively, "I finally get it."

"Get what?" I asked.

"_Romeo and Juliet_," he said as if we'd been talking about it. I suddenly remembered our conversation from the summer before. "I was wrong. I've just been thinking about it. Romeo wasn't a git after all, and he was in love."

"I thought you didn't believe in love, Mr. Black," I teased.

"I didn't." Something about the way he said it made me shiver. "Romeo was the– he was different from the rest of them, his family I mean. He saw –he didn't buy all the bullshit they were feeding him because he saw what of the Montegues for hundreds of generations were too ruddy blind to see. He knew that the Capulets were exactly the same as the Montegues. They–we're all human," his voice was raising goose bumps on my arms.

He stopped speaking suddenly, turning to look at me. I looked into his face and I knew what he was going to say. And I understood too. "So he knew he was different, and it hurt him. But then he saw her and he knew, he absolutely knew, he was right. He saw her and everything he'd gone through, all the stupid crap he'd had to put up with, all the fuck heads and ministry–er idiots he'd had to deal with were gone. There was only her...and he was happy, really, truly happy, for the first time, ever, and he didn't know how he had ever or would ever live without her...I..." he trailed off, his eyes on (or in) mine.

I couldn't speak for a long while. My throat was so dry it didn't feel remotely like a throat anymore, more like a dessert. "That's...that's beautiful, I managed."

He shook his head and kept looking at me in a way that made my heart threaten to explode, "you're beautiful."

My face felt like it was on fire, and it wasn't alone. "Im not...I'm..."

"Yes, yes you are." He tipped my chin up the way they do in movies and touched my cheek. "You're the most beautiful person I've ever met, that anyone's ever met. You're the one who made me realize it Am, you're the one who made me believe in love...because...because... well..."

All I could see were his eyes, and I felt like I was falling into them, toppling upwards into the sky, and I knew what he was going to say, because it was written there.

"I love you, Am."

If my life was a movie then I would have whispered, _I love you too_, in some cliché poetic but sappy manor. But this wasn't a moment from a movie, so all I could do was stammer, "I...me...you...I...too, you too."

The kiss, however, could have been from some 1930s romance story. The kind of Hollywood kiss that comes at the end of the movie when the hero and heroine hook up. The kind where the girls foot pops up and makes me say "that is so stupid". My foot didn't pop (thank God), but that was possibly the only difference. That and the distinct "oomph" when our lips touched.

I wanted it to last forever and I think it nearly did. When we broke apart I couldn't breathe let alone talk but somehow I managed a "wow."

Sirius smiled and in a far-off voice that sounded almost as stupid as mine said, "yeah." He cleared his throat then said, "So, um, are we, do you...?" He tried again, "so you do? and are we...an...a...a thing? Would you like to go out sometime?"

I laughed, "yes." It was such a funny situation. I never ever expected it but had always played it out in my head and it always ended with that perfect kiss. I always felt guilty after my daydreams, I felt like I was betraying myself somehow, that I was becoming too much like Kristen and her type. But what the Hell did I know? That moment, that kiss, that time up in the dilapidated third floor, was the best of my life. "Oh," I remembered, "I've got something for you."

"You've just given me loads, trust me," he said. I made a face to stop him from being so cheesy in the future.

"Some bloke turned it in a few days ago, I was going to write to you. When we told the bloke how much it would cost to fix it he just let us have it." He looked confused, "a motorbike, I mean. And it must have been something when it was new. I mean, I'm far more of a car person, but this isn't some crappy Brit bike, this is an American! a Harley-Davidson–!" He cut me off with a kiss and I suddenly believed in Prince Charmings too.

_A/N:The title...yeah... I dunno, I liked the quote. Shhh. I know it doesn't really work but I liked it. Meh, could've been better, could have been worse. Its hard to keep everything going at once. Meh. Meh. and Meh again. Oh well, Hakuna Matata_


	8. Brothers in Blood

_A/N: Hello again and welcome to another exciting installment of...this-ness. In my head when I think about the fic it is divided into three parts, the innocent part (which has just ended. DUN DUN DUUUUUN!), The Violent Part (about to begin BE AFRAID BE VERY AFRAID!) and the angsty that becomes not so angsty conclusion part, and in my head each one of these is marked by a chapter, Accidentally in Love I think best represents the innocent part, and this, this is the violence bit. (:evil author laugh:) I BRING YOU...THE CLIMAX! This is inspired (more than a bit) by the way Vardaman writes in As I Lay Dying (remember, that was the book that inspired this whole thing almost a year ago?) _

_**Warning:** Lots of blood and profanity, lots an lots of angst. _

_hehehehe... _

_**aztecgold822** - heheheehe! Slang crossing completely across the world! w00t! Yeah, Im a yank, Im from New Jersey, which rox! Uber is actually a German word meaning big (or something like that :D) but everyone in the USA, at least on the East Coast, uses it to mean cool or awesome (or a lot when its used like an uber load of homework but usually people use mad mad-load for that.) and stuff like that. No, its cool Im not offended, I dont know why I would be. XD! Sirius deprivation. Its a pun! LoLz! Serious depravation and Sirius deprivation! LoLz! Im totally honored by your reviews, they make me feel like...OMGTEHAWESOME! I love ya! (you should totally make a account if only so I can poke you.) _

_**harrypotterfan52** - Shhh! I think that movie is soooo cute! Amethyst would beg to differ, too girlie. So her foot didnt pop because if it did she might go on strike, and having picket lines in your brain is not fun. Schizophrenic? Me? Why no. Never! Maybe just a little. Or a lot. hehe. _

_**EsScaper** - Thanx two fold. Ive never been in a relationship so its pretty tricky to write and thanx for the good luck on my SATs Im gonna need it:( _

_**N. Beresford** - thnx, actually your please update soon cuz its wonderful thing is one of the things that got me off my lazy butt to finish it. (Well not so lazy more, OMFGIHATEBEINGAJUNIORINHIGHSCHOOL! butt. LoLz.) _

_**hotredhead** - There are at least four more chappies to follow this so Im going to be adding a lot more. I like your user name. _

_- The Evil Duck _

_This one's going out to all of you (above) guys... _

**The Child of The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black**

-Part 5-

Brothers In Blood

_June 1976_

Sirius Black is my brother.

_Was_ my brother.

Sirius Black was my brother, but now he is nothing more than a filthy blood traitor who broke Mother's heart.

Deep down I love Sirius.

_Loved_ Sirius.

Maybe only because he was my brother.

Maybe because of something else.

Maybe I respected something in him.

I never thought he was all the nasty things he pretended to be. I thought he was playing the rebel. I figured, and Mother did too, that Sirius was going through a phase. Our late Father assured us all of it and Sirius would laugh at him.

Sometimes I thought Father's reactions to Sirius were a bit...harsh. Cruel even. I never saw Sirius really get _beaten_, but hit, sure, loads of times.

I never thought Sirius didn't deserve it, but I always had some sympathy for him.

Well, not anymore.

Not really.

Maybe.

Maybe a little.

Maybe even more than before.

Now I just can't stop thinking about what happened, what he said, what she said, what I saw.

Is it my fault?

Is he really as bad as _she_, that filthy Muggle, is?

Did my Mother do something wrong?

Did she overreact?

It would be understandable but...

Sirius's room has been empty for three days, no one's been up there, no one's touched it, my Mother avoids the hall around it as well...the entire floor actually...and the floor that has the bottom of the stair that lead up to his tower bedroom and bathroom...

It hurts her to see it.

Would he still have run if...?

Would we ever have realized hed been...?

Does he know?

Does he know what he did to Mother?

Does he care?

Did he really mean what he said?

Any of it?

I suppose the answer lies in the events of three days ago. And I suppose now would be the best time to look them over.

Sirius disappeared early in the morning, as had become customary since we came home for the summer. He left a note explaining that he was going to go to Diagon Alley to keep himself busy. That in itself isn't that odd. Mother decided it was a good place for him to go and it would keep him out of her hair, and Lord knows she needed a break from him. Mother said it was better for him to go to Diagon Alley and at least be with fellow wizards instead of...

We were wrong to trust him. He was lying to us.

Looking back on it now, I wonder how long he'd been with the Muggle behind our backs, but just the thought makes me shiver with disgust. How could he do something like that? How could he stoop so low?

It was late, probably nine o'clock on a Wednesday night and I was coming home from my possible bride-to-be Ebony Rookwood's house, the younger sister of an important member of a political organization that Mother thinks would be beneficial for me to join. Father was the one who got our immediate Family involved (though the Ancient and Noble House itself has been involved for ages), although he never became a member himself. He was always in contact with those who were involved, people like Lucius Malfoy, Ebony's brother, and others. Rodulphus Lestrange (Bellatrixs soon-to-be husband) became involved shortly after Father's passing. I think he would have been proud to know so many members of our extended Family were getting involved.

Sirius was supposed to join too. The Smiths would speak to him about it every chance they got. He was polite to them, although looking back on it that may have been Father's doing, Sirius always treated Father with respect and quiet reverence. When I asked Mother about it after...it...she said that Sirius only acted like that out of fear.

He was terrified of Father.

I was walking home along a Muggle street, because although London is our capital city, the vast majority of the population is Muggle. When I asked Father why that was he told me it was the same reason why a house might have more rats, doxies, or roaches than people: vermin multiply faster. I usually think about these words walking through Muggle streets and I know he is right. The streets stink, the Muggles are loud and stupid, their cars and whatever else they use pollute everything so you can't see a single star and sometimes not even the moon over London.

Across the street a car slowed down to a stop, I would have ignored it, I always do, it makes me sick to watch them. The car pulled into an opened door, a muggle stepped out onto the asphalt in front of the door and gestured for someone to follow her.

I didnt look that way, didnt slow down or stop...

...until I heard his voice.

If I had been going home just a little later or just a little earlier I would have missed him completely and none of this would have happened.

Would it be better that way?

We would still be a family, Mother would not have to cry, Sirius wouldnt have had to leave...but...

But he still would have been with the Muggle.

He would still be lying to us.

Sirius spoke from inside the door, "I could live back here, you know."

I stopped dead.

I didn't question whether it was Sirius, Sirius is my brother...

..._was_ my brother...

I would recognize his voice, his face, him, anywhere. I knew it was him but I didn't know_ how_ or _why_ he was there.

"In the back of my Kombi?" said the Muggle. The Muggle he was with was looking back in the direction of his voice.

"Quite," Sirius's voice said, "I would sneak away in the mornings before your parents noticed me, steal some food to live off of, at least until I come of age, what'd you say?"

"Tempting," said the Muggle. When there came no response for a few moments the Muggle said, "Sirius, get out of my car."

He stepped out onto her side of the door and all doubt (if there had been any) was gone.

It was definitely Sirius Black, my brother, underneath the street lamp, dulled to orange and white by its dirty glow. "You don't want your two loves together in one place? Your car and your boyfriend?"

The words hit me hard.

He had to be lying.

He had to be joking.

_Boyfriend?_

No.

He wouldn't sink that low...

...he couldn't...

I think I will always continue to wonder why Sirius was with the Muggle that way.

Aunt Vega says it's because he can't tell right from wrong, morality from sin.

Uncle Cyrus says it's out of rebellion and that he would grow out of it in time and see how stupid he's been and regret all his mistakes but it will be too late.

Cousin Bellatrix says he's disgusting and always has been.

Cousin Narcissa says he's mad.

But I still don't know.

I still don't know.

I will never know.

"Like I said," the Muggle continued, "awfully tempting but Im going to have to pass, besides if my dad caught you living there he'd kill you. I had fun tonight."

"I always do," he said taking the Muggles hands in his, pulling her close to him. "One of these days we should just keep driving and never look back."

"You keep saying that," the Muggle said, "but I dont want to run. I want to stay here, we're kids, Sirius."

He shrugged, "one day..."

"Maybe," the Muggle agreed.

"Soon," Sirius said.

The Muggle shook her head, "one day means eventually not soon. Until then, I like living in the city and getting lost in the country with you. And if you run, don't go too far. I don't want to lose you."

Sirius smiled at the Muggle, "No matter what, Am, I love you and I'll be there, where ever there is. Even if I die."

"An angelic stalker," the Muggle laughed.

"Think more demonic." He told her.

Their lips touched and I almost vomited.

The kiss lasted forever and eternity. I couldn't tear my eyes away no matter how hard I tried.

Finally the Muggle broke off, "I have to go in. I love you."

"I love you too, Am," he told her releasing her hand last.

"I'd better not find you in my car tomorrow morning," the Muggle called to him over her shoulder as dissappeared into the darkness behind the door.

"I make no promises," he told her, he watched as the Muggle went into the house but before he turned around I ran, ran as fast as I could back Home.

I knew Mother would say something, she'd know what to do. She always has an answer. For everything always.

"Mother!" I screamed through the images in my head. They were all around me, my brother and the Muggle. I was so scared and confused. "Mother!"

"I'm in the sitting room Regulus, on the second floor, and don't shout!"

I think I was almost crying when I fell at her feet.

I don't remember what exactly I told her.

I don't remember what she was doing before I told her.

I don't remember what she told me.

I just remember how she got to her feet in silence and slow motion and waited for Sirius to come home. I stood in the shadows and I wondered what she was going to do.

I thought that in the end we'd still be a family and that she'd make everything better.

I thought Sirius would understand and it would all be forgotten about.

I thought maybe it was all a misunderstanding.

I thought Sirius would come around.

I thought everything was going to be all right.

I was wrong.

I don't remember waiting for the open, one moment I was telling Mother what I saw in words I dont remember, and the next Sirius was pushing the door opened. He was smiling broadly at first, but his smile began to disappear when he saw me then faded completely when he saw Mother.

"Hello," he said warmly. "What are you waiting around for, Mother? I'm sorry I'm so late, I got held up in Florrish and Blotts," I realized how many times hed probably lied to us. How disrespectful he was. And I felt cheated, stupid, and dirty.

He looked very different to me then. No longer almost an exact replica of Father, the same regal features, the same funny changing eyes, the same inky hair, but Sirius looked ugly and insect-like.

"Don't lie to me Sirius," Mother said and the room seemed to chill.

"Who's lying?" He asked.

"Regulus saw you, Sirius." Her voice was subzero, almost inhuman.

"Where?" Sirius looked at me and I knew there was something colder than Mother's voice.

"In the company of a Muggle, Sirius Black, _kissing_ a _Muggle_!" she spat the words and they sounded as disgusting as I knew they tasted. Sirius seemed unfazed by their sound but his gaze on me got hard and black as coal. Maybe that's what he saw when he looked into Father's eyes. If that was the case I can understand why he was so afraid. "Dont try to deny it!"

"I wasnt going to," he said looking back at her his gaze didn't change, his tone matched hers, loud now, chaotic, screaming, as terrible and as shrill as any Muggle argument I'd overheard through windows in the night.

"So you admit it?" She asked, "you admit to be a disgusting, vile, dirty, hellish, filthy blood traitor?"

"Yeah, I do, gladly, proudly, it's better than marrying my fucking cousin! I'm not disgusting! This whole flipping family is!"

"Hold your tongue, Sirius Black!" Mother shouted and a jet of yellow light shot out of her wand and hit Sirius square in the face. Sirius fell backward, his tongue trapped behind his magically sealed lips. "You will not insult this Family, if your Father were here to--"

"But he isn't!" Sirius shouted managing to tear through the hex with the sound of a plug being pulled from a drain (he'd had a lot of practice doing this and one of the reasons Father and Mother stopped using the Sigillus hex was because Sirius worked out how to break it without magic), "he's dead, he's rotting in Hell where he belongs!"

"Do not disrespect your Father like that!"

"I'll disrespect him however I want. The bastard's DEAD! Worm chow! Six feet under!"

"You will not disgrace our Family! You will shut up now and you will explain what Regulus saw."

"I won't shut up! I'm done with being shut up! And Im glad to 'disgrace the Family name.' I'll gladly be a 'blood traitor.' You want to know why Mother? Because I dont give a shit, I couldn't care less about this bleeding family or your fucking traditions! I don't care! And what's more, you know who I do care about? I care about my girlfriend! That's right! She's my girlfriend. I've been seeing her since January! I've known her since last July! And I love her!"

"Crucio!"

I had never seen an Unforgivable Curse before and I hope never to see one again. There was a jet red light, then there was only screaming and noise. I may have only imagined I could hear his bones bending and muscles whining.

I hope I only imagined it.

It seemed an age before Mother released my brother and he got to his feet breathing heavily through his teeth, "right, fuck you bitch, that's it, I'm out of here. Fuck you, fuck this family, fuck every single one of you." He was heading towards the stairs, he pushed passed her. Sweat was trickling down his face and hands as he gripped the railing.

"Stop this now, Sirius, don't make me do that to you again," she didn't sound as if she would mind. And that scared me.

"Do what? Curse me? Beat me? Tell me I'm trash then treat me like it? I know how _normal_ families act, Mother, I know that you're a psychotic bitch and I know Father was just a sadistic bastard with fewer brain cells than a toadstool! I know what this really is! This is child abuse!" He looked back at her to say this, hate in every syllable, words quivering around me.

_Normal families?_

_Trash? _

_I know what this really is? _

_Child abuse?_

No.

Not our Family.

Not Mother.

Not Father.

No, Muggles have child abuse. Wizards do not.

We're above that.

"Crucio!"

I don't know whether she did it just to make him stop or because she couldn't take what he was saying. It was all burning in my ears. Her curse hit one of the house elf heads on the wall but missed Sirius, who had run up stairs.

"Get back down here, Sirius Black, NOW! NOW! I'll kill you! GET DOWN HERE!" She continued to scream, and I was afraid.

I was afraid of her.

A century of Mother's screaming passed before I heard a distinct clunking overhead. Sirius appeared again at the top of the staircase, dragging his trunk behind him. He placed it at the top of the staircase in front of him, foot on the lid. He was staring at Mother with so much anger.

I was afraid of him as well.

I stayed in the shadows, praying it was all some dream, some misunderstanding, that everyone and everything would be all right, would be the same.

"Don't you dare," Mother hissed as Sirius pushed his trunk slightly with his foot.

His expression didn't change as he sent it crashing down the stairs. The sound was infinitely louder than anything I'd ever heard before in my life. It hurt more than my ears as it fell. I watched the trunk tumble and crash into the wall at the foot of the stairs, denting it below the plaque Father was given for donating to St. Mungo's. Sirius smirked and looked at Mother, challenging her.

"Crucio!" At first I thought maybe this time Sirius deserved it.

That it wouldn't last.

That she wouldnt hurt him, badly, again.

Because wizards don't abuse their children.

Because my Family wouldn't do anything like that.

But she didn't let up, not until Sirius fell forward in the red light and was tumbling, like his trunk, and as loudly as his trunk had, down the stairs, smacking hard against it so that blood burst from above his eyebrow.

I gasped, Sirius touched his forehead. "You bitch," He whispered to Mother, hands trembling, arms shaking, his entire body was quaking almost violently. There was sweat trickling from his hair.

"You made me do this Sirius," she told him, "get up now and get back up stairs."

He was already getting to his feet but he wasn't going toward his room. He pushed passed Mother. I had never noticed before then how much taller he was than she. Sirius was dragging his trunk.

The corner of it had a tiny splatter of his blood.

Red and dripping.

"Where do you think youre going?" Mother asked dangerously. "Away," he said shortly without turning around.

"Turn around this moment and go back to your room!" She shouted at him.

"No."

"I'm your Mother, you arrogant little worm, do as you're told!"

"Bugger off," Sirius told her any scrap of respect gone from his voice.

"Don't disrespect me."

"I'll do whatever the fuck I want," he told her dragging his trunk to the door.

"You have to do as I say!"

"I don't give a damn about what you say, so bugger off bitch! I hate you, I hate Father, and I hate _him_."

These words hurt me more than anything else that night.

_Hate? _

I have always loved Sirius, he's my brother, he's the one I was supposed to depend on...

I never thought he could hate any of us.

We're family.

We love each other.

Mother stood stunned, twitching, trying to think of what to say. She made one final attempt, "turn around now and your punishment will be severely reduced. Go to your room Sirius."

He should have taken it. Then he would still be here.

Then we could have laughed it off, Sirius is good about laughing things off.

It could have been a nightmare.

It could have ended then...

Sirius made no response but raised his right hand (which was not carrying his trunk) and raised his pointer and middle finger.

Flipping Mother off.

But as soon as they were raised they became bloody and formless.

There was a jet of purple light, then Sirius pulled his arm down, cradling it and hissing in pain. It was violent. Loud. I feel back into the shadows, I wanted to cry.

But Blacks don't cry.

Mother screeched.

Sirius cursed, wrenched the door opened and slammed it closed, leaving a trail of blood behind him.

The hall was so quiet you could hear the Earth turning.

My mind was spinning,

screaming.

I didn't know what had happened.

None of it made sense.

Then suddenly it became infinitely worse.

Mother sank to her knees, dropping her wand, sobbing freely, crying openly, something a Black must never do.

Blacks don't cry.

I knew then that it was over.

I knew then that Sirius had committed a far greater sin than I could have ever imagined.

I knew I couldn't cry, no matter how badly I wanted to.

I couldn't ask Mother what to do or what was happening because she didn't know.

But Mother knows everything.

Everything always.

But she was as lost and scared as I.

And I became even more afraid.

Mother was wailing.

And I could think of nothing else but that horrible sound.

"SIRIUS!" She screamed.

Kreature came suddenly to Mothers side, his disgusting green hands on her shoulder, and I knew _I_ should have been the one there...

...but I couldn't move.

So I allowed our House Elf to comfort Mother.

"Kreature is sorry, Mistress, filthy blood-traitor, disrespectful, ungrateful, monster--"

"NO! NO! SIRIUS! SIRIUS! MY BABY! MY CHILD! SIRIUS!"

"Kreature thinks --"

"I DON'T CARE! I WANT MY BABY BACK! MY BABY, MY LITTLE BOY!" She was hardly breathing, as she pounded the ground, sobbing onto the rug. That was when I felt tears escape from my own eyes.

I don't recall how long I stood there.

I don't actually remember ever leaving that spot.

But when I woke on Thursday, Mother was hardly speaking...

...Sirius's room was empty...

...and I kept thinking it over, running everything in my mind, words, images, colors, curses.

I am still doing it.

I will continue to do it until the day I die.

Sometimes I can only see Mother crying and I know Sirius is to blame.

Then I can see only the red blur and the whine of bone and I blame Mother.

I look through the portraits in our House, searching for the one that will always stand out in my mind. I must have been six or seven and Sirius was just about eight. Father was still alive and strong then, Mother was happy, and we were a family.

We were _my_ Family.

I don't know when or how it changed.

I don't know if I've been blind not to see it before.

But I wish it could all go back to normal.

All go back to being Happy.

_A/N: BEST CHAPTER EVER! Sorry, tooting my own horn, but I am SOOO f'in' happy with how this turned out! I could squee over myself right now. LoLz. Jeez! Oh and before I go on Sirius's (slightly OOC) speech about devotion was inspired by Flogging Molly's "If I Ever Leave This World Alive" Drunken Lullibies 2003 (I think)_


	9. Interlude 3 The Child of The Noble and

_A/N: And now for something...completely different! (written in the span of ten minutes t to grab the insantiy and rush then proof read by Josh (yay!). _

_**N. Beresford - **Thanx, I tried!_

**_aztecgold822_** - _poking saying hello! I dunno, it's a yankee thing I guess. So cool to think I'm actually talking to someone on the other side of the world! The innocent part is always there to be reread. I miss it too :( poor Sirius, but he's just too much fun when he's angsty!_

_**wonderwall05 - **A new look on things, that's what I'm here for! _

**_harrypotterfan52 _**- _for you? Anything. ;) _

_**xmusecliox - **thnx sooo much, I'm glad I could almost pass for British. I've totally got an unhealthy obsession for the UK. I'm one of those HP enthusiastes who's also a UK history buff and was CLEARLY born on the wrong side of the Atlantic. I'm glad I got that sympathy across as much as I loathe her she's still a mother who misses her child. Squee! I did it right:loves: _

_**Warning: **Sirius (and Serious, teehee) insanity comin' at cha! _

_Much Love_

_-The Evil Duck_

**The Child of The Noble And Most Ancient House of Black**

-Interlude III-

The Child of The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black

_June 1976_

I think I must be dying.

I mean, how much blood can a person lose before they drop dead? Fall out of the sky like a brick. I'm dying. I'm cracking up, I must be cracking up. No other way to explain it, really. No other explanation. I can't stop laughing. I can't stop laughing and I think I might cry. I'm going to cry, but I can't stop laughing. I'm crying, I'm laughing, I'm dying but I'm Free! Did you hear that? I'M FREE! I'm free! I'm FREE! FREE! Free forever! And I'm NEVER going back there! NEVER! NEVER! NEVER! NEVER! I'll never set foot in that house AGAIN! The next time I see that bitch she'll be below ground and I'll laugh and spit on her grave. Jesus Christ, I can barely see through the tears.

Blacks don't cry.

But I'm not a Black any more! I'm FREE! Free from the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black! I'M FREE! I'm crying, I'm dying, I'm laughing, I'm free! I never cried. I took everything he dished out, that bastard, that absolute BASTARD! Where am I? Where the bloody Hell am I? I'm dying. How much blood can a person lose before they die? Stone cold dead.

_I remember his face, frozen, white, cold. It was the first time he ever looked human, peaceful, unimposing and nonthreatening. I wasn't scared of him. It was hard to believe that the man in the box was the same man who...who..._

Where the fuck am I? Where am I going? I keep laughing, bending over the handlebars, screaming...at least I think I'm screaming. I'm FREE! I don't believe it, I'm finally free! I'm definetly cracking up. I've cracked up! I'm losing it! Lost it! I'm dying and I've lost my mind. Where am I? All the sky looks the same from up here. No, it doesn't. Father?

_Long ago in Normandy, before our Family crossed over the Chanel to England in 1066, when modern magic was still being developed, wizards depended on astronomy more than anything else. Our ancestors, the Noirs, were famous for their knowledge of the night sky. Wizards from all over France sought our advice and maps and depended on us for long journeys. Astronomy isn't as necessary as it used to be, but it can still be used by a wizard in a pinch, and reading the night sky is a good and important skill to have, Sirius. _

_Father, which star am I? Which one is Sirius?_

_Let's see, well, do you see that constellation there? See those three stars lined up like that? _

_Yes, is that it?_

_No, that's Orion, the Hunter. _

_Father, that's your name!_

_Patience, Son, patience. I'm getting there. Follow my hand...do you see that very bright twinkling star? _

_Right where you're pointing?_

_Right where I'm pointing. _

_Yes!_

_That's Sirius. You can always find it because it's the brighest thing to the left of Orion. _

There, that's Sirius. The brightest thing to the left of Orion. Did he care? Did he care then? Fuck, what does it matter? Things look different up here. Where am I? WHERE AM I! Where am I going?

James!

James! I'll get to James! He'll help me! James'll save me! James knows what to do! James knows everything. Everything always! I'm crying. I'm laughing. I'm bleeding. That's the only thing I know. I _know_ I'm bleeding. Oh my god, help me! I'm cracking up! I'm freezing! I'm dying! You get cold before you die. Cold, in a box, on a motorbike.

It hurts! Oh god, please--my arm! It hurts! What did that bitch do to me? I don't remember. I don't know. All I know is that I'm bleeding. All I know is that it hurts. Am I laughing? Am I crying? Am I screaming? Where am I?

The brightest thing to the left of Orion.

Father? I'm dying! I'm dying! I'm free! James--I'm coming. James--where are you? Where am I? The brightest thing to the left of Orion. James please help me. Please...


End file.
